Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick East, Labour)

This Estimate deals with two issues. The first is the €19 million underestimation of the cost of the payment for children under six years old. How did the Government get the figure so wrong? It is a considerable sum. The information on the number of children under six was available to the Government. I accept there was an increase in the number of births this year, but the Government should have had figures for the number of children already born when the Estimates were agreed. Perhaps the Minister will explain if the figure is wrong because the Government did not consider that this payment would be payable to people whose children are not living in this country.

However, I wish to focus on the second issue. The Minister has taken the wrong approach. Nobody disputes that this issue must be re-evaluated, that there must be value for money, as advised in the recommendations, and that there should be tiered payments in community child care provision. The Minister says there will be more money in the system, but how he will spend it is wrong. Parents who work part-time, are on family income supplement or are in any type of employment will be priced out of the community child care facilities. This is a disincentive to these parents to get employment.

One of the objectives of the original scheme, the equal opportunities child care programme, was to allow parents to access employment, education and training. People throughout the country have told us that they will not be able to afford to send their children to their community child care facility when they get employment. This is a particular difficulty for lone parents, whom we are trying to encourage into employment. This scheme is a clear disincentive. The charges will be such that people will simply be unable to afford them. The Minister must return to the drawing board on this issue.

The intentions of the scheme were that there would be an appropriately tiered system, whereby parents on high incomes would pay the appropriate rate. We have no problem with this. However, the low income, working families will be priced out of these facilities. That is the reason the Labour Party is so concerned about this Estimate. The Minister must return to the drawing board and produce a properly tiered system whereby low income, working parents can afford to send their children to not-for-profit community child care facilities. These facilities were intended to give opportunities to the very parents who will now be priced out of them.

This issue is also important for Government backbenchers, including the Acting Chairman, Deputy O'Connor. I am sure it affects Tallaght as well as other places. We have received representations from both urban and rural communities who believe this measure will close down their child care facilities. The purpose of the Supplementary Estimate for the capital grants, which we support, is to allow these child care facilities to build extra accommodation by availing of capital grants.

If they do this and parents can no longer afford to send their children there, then the capital grants will have been wasted. The point is to encourage lone parent families and other low income families to access work rather than stay on welfare but such families will be priced out of the crèche system so we believe the Minister of State is wrong on this matter. The funding could be used to create a genuinely tiered system that would encourage people to access employment while also being able to afford the good community child care facilities that exist all over the country. I hope the Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children, Deputy Smith, goes back to the drawing board on this matter to develop an equitable system of access to community child care programmes. Otherwise facilities around the country will be forced to close because there will not be enough parents who can afford the full costs facing working parents. This matter of concern has been raised around the country.

See this speech in context