David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)

I am pleased to speak on this Bill. Can Deputy Keaveney state if her colleague received the phone call in the morning? She has told us half the story.

I agree with Deputy Keaveney on the importance of music. I have personal knowledge of this through my family and other children. We are beginning to build social infrastructure after decades of focusing on building our capital infrastructure through employment outside the home. We must also value work in the home and the crucial task parents have of rearing children and preparing the next generation.

The early years are very important and events in this period can have a major bearing on the later life of the person as a child, a young adult and an adult. In my previous experience as a counsellor I dealt with children's personal difficulties. One technique used was to examine the earliest memories of the child. Invariably, we found that the behaviour of a problematic, troubled child could be traced to the early years. In one instance, a child of 14 who was constantly in trouble at school recalled being left alone at home at the age of two and a half or three years. He spent the day sitting inside the front door crying. Much of his anger could be traced to these times in his life when he felt neglected by his mother. It is important to expand, examine and debate parenting, the role of families and how we can support parents in that crucial role.

The take-up of measures introduced in the Parental Leave Act 1998 is approximately 20%. This was the finding of the review of the Parental Leave Act by the Department in 2001. Perhaps this figure has increased since then and I would be interested in the current figures. The Minister of State can address this in his response to this debate.

This raises the question why more people do not avail of measures in this Act. Can people not afford it, are they unaware of it or are they discouraged from availing of it? Is the mechanism for application overly bureaucratic? The Minister can provide us with the benefit of his wisdom on this matter. There is no point in a provision on the Statute Book if people are unable to avail of it. It will be interesting to discover the reason for the low take-up of this beneficial measure.

A colleague spent three weeks on holidays with his two children. After three weeks in a caravan park in the west, he wanted to go back to work. Entertaining and minding two toddlers for three weeks was really hard work. That is my first point.

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