Finian McGrath (Dublin North Central, Independent)

On a wider level, I welcome the extra funding of €88,441 in information and communications technology grants for 18 schools in my constituency and the additional funding of €108,377 for Dublin North-Central schools. I have also seen in recent weeks €1,165,485 being provided for a disabled housing project in Coolock, the setting up of the Greendale school for autistic children on the north side and extra educational services in the Marino area. These are all clear strategies to improve our educational services for children and a direct attempt to build a future for our young people.

An examination of the detailed figures in this debate will show that €153 million spent over the next three years is a massive investment in child care for the poorest sections of our society. Investing in child care and education is an investment in the future. It will create a better chance for our children and enable them to make choices that can sustain them for the rest of their lives and make them valuable members of our community.

I came into politics through the community and voluntary sector and these are issues concerning my broader vision for this country. Child care and quality education are the engine room of any future economy and will improve the quality of life for all our people. I also welcome the fact that on the announcement of the new scheme in July 2007, it was also announced that the current level of funding to services would continue to July 2008 to allow the collection of data, which would allow costing of improvements to the subventions under the scheme, and that a series of regional seminars were held at which this was outlined to community child care providers. The initial analysis of the data suggests that under the new scheme, even with no subvention, the price charged to non-disadvantaged parents will be significantly below the market price of child care largely as a result of capital grant aid and the not-for-profit nature of the services in question. As well as this, a number of services which already had a strong focus on disadvantage and implemented the tiered fee structure have contacted the office of the Minister for children to say that having got the information required from parents, they will now have an increased level of grant aid from July 2008 regardless of any future improvements. In other words, the most disadvantaged will gain more in this debate. That should be our focus.

We must build on improving child care services to ensure that all our children are cherished equally and every child in this State gets a good chance in a lifelong learning process. It is only then that we can all say there is equality in this area.

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