Chris Andrews (Dublin South East, Fianna Fail)

The scheme will benefit parents who would otherwise have paid for this service. It will also benefit disadvantaged children whose parents would not be in a position to pay for their attendance at preschool. The scheme also safeguards jobs in a sector that is likely to be hit hard by the economic downturn. Most facilities have small margins and low pay and are very vulnerable to a reduction in the number of parents who send their children to child care facilities following a reduction in their incomes. Therefore, we are bringing about value for money with this innovative scheme. This is something the Children's Rights Alliance welcomes.

Mr. Fintan O'Toole, another great advocate for social justice, when writing in The Irish Times on the morning of the Minister, Deputy Brian Lenihan's first budget on 14 October, asked what the budget did about early childhood care. He said that instead of getting a universal preschool system for €136 million a year, which was the NESC costing, we were spending €406 million on a private system that did not work and that, therefore, there was a simple test for the Minister for Finance's first budget. If it contained a commitment to scrap the early child care supplement and to create a universal preschool system, we had intelligent government.

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