Mr. Ger Gibbons:

In the context of childcare, I echo the point that the more fathers are involved in the early months of looking after children, as all the studies and research indicate, the more they will do this in subsequent years and it is in the best interests of children. We would also address this issue in the context of the new work-life balance directive that we have to transpose by 2022, which contains many good provisions in regard to care. Many things are left open for Ireland to decide, such as whether we want to go down this route. This is something we will have to look at in the coming years.

On childcare, I refer to the draft country-specific recommendations that came out on 5 June. In the context of the second such recommendation, a point we wanted to flag up is that the Commission is recommending that Ireland increases access to affordable and quality childcare. While we welcome this in principle, we would just say that last year's recommendation talked about increasing access to affordable quality childcare compared with affordable and quality childcare this year. I make the point that affordable childcare may not be quality childcare. It might be pedantic but these things matter. We believe it would have been preferable if the Commission had stayed with last year's recommendation to implement affordable quality childcare.

We have to acknowledge that one of the big problems we face in the context of childcare relates to the low pay and conditions of workers in the sector. They spend years acquiring the qualifications to work in the sector, they get there and they are still earning just above the minimum wage - I think the going rate is about €10.50 per hour. Nobody who has spent all of this time is going to stay on that rate. It is an issue. We will not get the kind of quality childcare service that children deserve unless we address the issue of pay and conditions.