Michael Finneran (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate on child care and the success story that is child care support in this country. The Government has directly promoted the development of preschool infrastructure virtually from scratch, so to speak. We should be proud that since 2000, the European Union has supported the equal opportunities child care programme which means that many mothers have been in a position to go back into the workforce knowing there is a child care facility available to them to care for their children. That programme has been a success and to date more than 35,000 new child care places have been created in the community, not-for-profit and private provider sectors.

A total of €500 million has been invested in that programme and we now move into the national child care investment programme. It is important to state that this programme is being financed entirely from the Exchequer. In fact, it is being funded by taxpayers. It is important that we establish that——

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