Mary White (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The current lack of vetting will be a scandal in the future. Garda vetting is very limited. This is through no fault of the Garda, but the money must be invested in vetting. There will be a scandal in years to come over people who were not suitable to be minding children and who were not vetted properly. It is chaotic and is worse than it ever was. Senator Henry is wrong. Fianna Fáil invested substantially in capital infrastructure and in child care. We were the first party to do so.

My final point is that Ms O'Connor has misunderstood. I was developing a policy paper on female entrepreneurs, which had about 11 recommendations. Ms O'Connor misread my recommendation. I was talking about female entrepreneurs. The State needs to have as many women setting up businesses as men. If they did, we would have 500 more jobs a month. I am saying there is no way that someone could stay at home if they were an entrepreneur. That was the context of my recommendation. I am afraid Ms O'Connor misunderstood at the time. If one is an entrepreneur, one's husband might not work, for example. There are all those aspects to it.

I am the rapporteur for female entrepreneurs on the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. We had tremendous women coming in and giving us advice. One serious issue is the availability of a 24-hour service for women who have to travel internationally. There is huge demand. Members might think they are badly off when they have to travel to their constituencies, but if they had to travel to Brazil, South America or South Africa and had no partner to mind the children, it would be very difficult. There is a big need for 24-hour child care.

I am sorry for going on. I feel very passionate about it. It is a bloody mess. It lacks a political driver who has a passion about it. With all due respect to Dr. Reilly-----