Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)
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I thank Mr. O'Connor and Ms Reynolds for the presentation and for outlining so starkly the staffing crisis. What we are hearing from them and others such as parents, childcare providers and staff is that this is a crisis in the sector beyond just staffing. The current Government policy is failing staff and parents, who are paying the second highest household childcare costs in the OECD, with couples spending an average of 24% of income and single parents spending 29% of their wages on childcare costs. We are also failing providers, which are telling us it is difficult to make ends meet. Our guests presented to us figures from managers and owner-managers, as well as from staff. We are also failing children if we are not providing proper, high-quality and affordable childcare and ensuring that all children are equally provided for.

One of the main issues I am hearing in Dublin Bay South, and I am sure others are hearing it too, concerns the simple lack of places, in particular affordable ones, in childcare facilities and crèches. Clearly, it is very important that we have moved to a living wage and the point about the joint labour committee was well made. Beyond that, I have called for a Donogh O'Malley moment, that is, we need to see a change in Government policy overall such that every child in Ireland will be guaranteed an early years place and the State will ensure that is so. We should move from this piecemeal provision, whereby we rely on private providers, to a State-guaranteed model, as we did with secondary education, in order that the subsidies from the State, which already are considerable, will afford us a better value, State-guaranteed childcare service.

Our guests might wish to comment on that, although it has gone a little beyond the focus of the session. It always seems to me that rather than talk just about wages, although that is very important, we need also to talk more generally about how we need to reform or radically revise the system.