Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

I thank the other Opposition parties for bringing this motion before the House and affording us an opportunity to discuss child care. For a certain sector of Irish people, child care has been an important issue for some time. As many Deputies noted tonight, Ireland has changed dramatically, almost unrecognisably, in the past two decades. Incomes and employment have increased and our physical infrastructurehas improved. There are nevertheless serious quality of life questions which apply to many people, which the Government has let slip. Family circumstances have changed as dramatically as our road systems. In most families, particularly young ones, both parents are working out of necessity or choice. Family structures have also changed because there are more single parent families which need State support different from that provided in the past. As the workforce increases and more Irish people are working, there is less time for parenting, which poses problems. As a party which prides itself on the promotion of family values and the support of family life, Fine Gael is interested in such issues.

Many people agree with these sentiments but are too busy to stand up and say so. When surveyed in 2002, 62% of mothers and 86% of fathers in Ireland said that they would like to spend more time with their families but were unable to do so because of work commitments. Time has become a key commodity for parents and all too often parents are forced to choose between spending time at work and spending time with their children or their elderly family members. Unfortunately, work is the priority, most of the time, out of necessity. The Government needs to find ways of providing more family-friendly successful policies. IBEC estimates that four out of five companies countrywide have some form of family-friendly work policies within the structures of their businesses. Further support is needed there.

I will concentrate on two key areas of child care, provision and cost. I welcome the Government policy of providing capital tax incentives to companies to continue to provide physical child care facilities in the workplace. That must continue. We must strongly encourage companies in this regard and make it financially worth their time. I am a great believer in using the taxation system as a way of incentivising a progressive change. We should continue with the policy referred to even more aggressively than in the past. The State must take a more proactive approach towards building a physical child care infrastructure where the workplace clearly cannot provide it. There are blackspots in every constituency. Even if every company in the country were to provide child care facilities, there would still be parents in need of State assistance with community child care facilities. Previous speakers mentioned other working models in Europe. We need to look at them and copy them. It is not a matter of re-inventing the wheel.

I will make an important but perhaps controversial point regarding the cost for parents. The time has come to allow middle-income earners, in particular, to write off at least a portion of the cost of child care against income tax. As the debate must now adjourn, I will, perhaps, explain that point to the Minister.

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