Luke Flanagan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It was a pleasure to listen to what everyone said, including elected representatives and officials. It is an ill wind that blows no good. We were all children at one stage so it is great to discuss the programme even though it was dire to watch. The ideas are getting out and hopefully something will come of it.

We are talking about two sectors, although they overlap. Early education is needed by every child and child care is another area. One of the main reasons we need child care is for when parents are doing something else. That might seem obvious but the point is that the vast majority of people do this because they need to work or want to work for variety. We cannot suspend reality when we talk about how we need to pay more to people who work in the child care sector and ignore the fact that the higher the wages, the seesaw of whether parents can go to work works against people. That must be taken into account.

Looking after children is the most important job of all as far as I am concerned. They are the future. If it is the most important job, we must have the best people to do it and pay them the best wages. However, if we pay them the best wages, how can I or my wife go out to work? There comes a point where it is not practical.

We have been here for two hours and 40 minutes but, and I never thought it would sound radical to say this, there is one matter that has not yet been mentioned, the idea that, God forbid, we might be able to look after our own children. Obviously it could not happen all the time as we have to be practical and people have to go out to certain jobs and so forth, but can we not structure society so that in the early years one can look after one's own children, if one wishes? Where have we gone that it is radical to say this? It has not been mentioned in the nearly three hours we have been in this room. We talk about child care but nobody mentioned, or it does not appear to have entered anybody's head, that there is a form of child care called looking after one's own children. Can we structure society in such a way that it is feasible to do that, if one wishes? That has been said many times to me by the people I have spoken to in the last couple of weeks. How do we do that? After all, we work to provide money for food for our children. Ultimately, it is about the children, and the work should not be the most important thing. It should be about life and not about turning life into a factory, which is what we appear to be doing.