Mary White (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party)

I am pleased the House has an opportunity to debate the details of the community child care subvention scheme. I am also pleased both the Dáil and the Seanad have been addressed by the Minister of State on this matter as his Department continues its evaluation and assessment of its implications. While I welcome the focus the Minister of State and his officials are putting on the most disadvantaged and needy in devising the community child care subvention scheme, I am pleased to note he is keeping an open mind on its implementation.

Much has been achieved in recent years in building up and supporting community child care here. Challenging as the task has been at a time of much social transformation here, the creation of 36,000 new child care places, 25,000 additional places supported and nearly 3,000 jobs created, and a scheme where social integration has been promoted, are all commendable achievements. They make it all the more imperative that the equal opportunities childcare programme replacement is foolproof. In assessing the data on parent profile returns, which many child care centres are reporting difficulty in receiving back from parents, I urge the Minister to be vigilant as to what the community child care sector is saying.

While it is equitable and fair to target grant aid to those with the lowest incomes, there must be realism and imagination in deciding on the thresholds. Anecdotal evidence and correspondence received by many TDs in recent weeks and months suggest that those just above the family income supplement threshold will not be able to afford the child care being provided by the community not-for-profit sector. A significant number of people would lose out as a result. In many rural areas, including areas of north Kilkenny and parts of south Carlow where there are no private child care providers, the not-for-profit centres will lose business and may be forced to close. The objective, successfully achieved since 2000, of encouraging parents to return to the workforce or training, developing good staff to child ratios and making pre-school and after school care affordable, might be endangered. The House should accept at face value what both the value for money review and the Minister have said about the non-implementation of realistic tiered fee charges by community crèches but the way to maintain inclusiveness of access is ensuring such tapering of these is implemented rather than drawing stark lines of subvention eligibility.

I hope the Minister will consider that throughout the review. The Green Party will support any child care subvention scheme that is equitable and inclusive. The increase of over 16% in funding allocation for 2008 is welcome but I call on the Minister to get the system right before next July to ensure equality of access and the promotion of social integration. We must ensure we are not here a year from now wondering why many working parents had to quit jobs because of the cost of their child care, why communities lost their not for profit child care centres and why such communities in turn may become ghettoised.

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