Catherine Byrne (Dublin South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for being late but I heard some of the presentations in my office. I am probably old-fashioned in that I believe the longer one spends at home with one's children the better chance one has of connecting with them, but sadly, that it is not possible for many young people, particularly when they have mortgages and have found themselves in negative equity. I would agree with the point made by Deputy Kelleher in that I have passed many a housing estate where children are being bundled into the cars at 7.30 a.m. to be dropped off either at the homes of friends or family or at crèches. I have only one question regarding shared parental leave. I honestly believe it is the way to go. There should be an opportunity for a father to take longer extended leave to be able to look after his child, if possible. Sometimes the mother can be better off financially in her position in work and it might make more sense for the father to share that leave.

The owners of many private crèches and playschools find it difficult to manage. They are trying to earn an income from the business and they have large overheads and staff costs. I have found many of them that I visited to be very competent and their staff are very well trained. They sometimes get an unfriendly knocking from some of us about making a business out of the service, but it is an essential service for many parents who go out to work.

I want to concentrate on young mothers who live in less-well-off communities who drop their children into some type of crèche locally, particularly family resource centres, after-school projects and other such places. I am worried about the connection between those young mothers and their children. Young mothers drop their children to school in the morning and probably do not see them until late afternoon, as some children go from school to an after-school project and it does not end until 6 p.m. It is a long time for mothers to be away from their children. I am not talking about mothers who go out to work but young mothers who are not working. I am concerned about those young mothers in terms of the time they have from when they drop their children to a crèche or playschool in their early years and pick them up from an after-school project. Many young mothers in the area I represent go home having dropped their child to school and then do their everyday chores, which mothers would have done in the past when they were at home with their children. The children are out of the home from early morning until late in the evening when they come out of after-school projects. As a result of that, there does not seem to be a mother-child connection. That connection is being lost.

We need to examine how parenting is done. Information is provided on parenting skills. A parenting programme was provided in the local school in my parish in the past. It was targeted at young mothers and it covered the feeding, bathing, minding and caring of children. It was a wonderful programme. It did not cost the parents who attended it a penny. It was provided on a voluntary basis by older mothers who had time to go to the schools. We need to examine this area again. In terms of the many young women who do not have educational skills and do not want to return to education, there is a gap that needs to be filled. We do not want to start baby-minding places because that is not what this is about. If parents want to put their children into crèches and playschools, they should be a follow-on for young mothers in the community to take up courses. However, many of them do not do so.

Have the delegates an opinion on the cost of crèches, particularly private crèches? Some people have told me that the cost of putting their children into a private crèche is nearly the cost of their mortgage repayment, and they find it very difficult to meet those costs.