Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)

The arguments in this respect are fairly straightforward. Which one of us as a politician looking for votes would argue against mothers being given extra money in whatever way? That was probably the reason this measure was introduced in the first instance. In the run up to the election, following which the early child care supplement was introduced, child care provision was the issue of concern to people we heard on the doorsteps. The Government introduced the early child care supplement.

A group met in Buswells today — they have gone now since 1.30 p.m. — regarding the national child care standards in Ireland. That group along with every other pre-school scheme in the country are lobbying on behalf of these groups. Most of them who are supposed to be self-sufficient at this stage simply cannot charge mothers — usually they are mothers on low income or mothers who are just finding their way in getting back to employment — the fees necessary to ensure that the schemes continue.

We are now facing the first downturn in the economy in many years. It is a serious one and nobody should dismiss it lightly. We are looking down the barrel of a gun and we do not know the half of it yet. No one in here is diminishing the scale of the crisis that is about to hit us and that has already hit some people. If the money allocated for this child care measure had been directed in a different fashion, our circumstances in terms of child care provision would now be different. The introduction of this measure was a political ploy deliberately designed to garner votes and, cleverly, it achieved that, but it did not give us the type of infrastructure we need in terms of child care provision.

We can all be a little bit cynical and practical at this stage and say that with the downturn in the economy and the amount of women and men coming out of employment there will not be as great a need for child care outside the home. The difficulty with that philosophy is that we all know that children need the interaction of other children and, in most cases, the type of help and preparation provided outside the home to get them ready for school and to enable them attain their full potential within the education system. A cutback is proposed in the moneys that were to be distributed to parents of young children. If we had a proper debate on this matter in the first instance, we would have quickly realised that this measure would not achieve what it was intended to achieve, namely, to increase the number of child care places or to help parents provide the type of child care they wanted for their children.

We are really arguing about pulling out the plug when we should have been talking, in the first instance, about turning off the tap. I support the amendment, but we should have had a clearer and fuller debate about this matter before this supplement was introduced.

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