Ms Michelle Murphy:

Childcare is a significant cost burden on families. If one looks at it in terms of the life cycle, the period during which one faces this significant cost burden is quite short but it is an area that requires significant investment. The challenge is because the sector is quite fragmented and we rely on private provision. Private providers are struggling between paying their employees a decent wage and expanding their services and meeting the ratios. One of our proposals is to consider how we might address the funding element so that we separate the wage element from professionalisation of the sector. It involves looking at parts of the ECCE scheme, which is for children aged three years and over, and how we might apply that to children aged between zero to three, how the State might support the sector in terms of professionalisation, quality and affordability for families and how we might expand and improve the model. We are seeking €85 million in the current budget for this. In addition, we need to look at how we might expand the sector to incorporate other elements, particularly childminders for those living outside urban settings, and how we deal with the informal care element.

With regard to sharing current entitlements, the legislation that is going through and the potential for a self-employed woman to transfer maternity leave, in principle, this would be a positive step if it led to the broader issue of care being more equal because, as the Deputy noted, the burden of care of children and older family members tends to fall on the woman in the household so that we would take a more holistic approach to care. We would certainly like to see something along the lines of the Swedish model so that if this leave was transferred, it would have to be used because all the literature shows that what is in the best interests of the child is being in the care of its parents in the first year of its life and, in principle, to support women, particularly self-employed women, and their families to care for their child as they would like.