Paul Connaughton Snr (Galway East, Fine Gael)

I congratulate Deputy Enright for bringing this motion to the floor of the House. As I do not want to repeat what has already been said, I will focus on two aspects of this debate. Regardless of what end of the scale one comes from, one cannot deny that we have had a series of anti-family budgets. When the early child care supplement scheme was introduced in 2006, many people believed it was a good thing. In retrospect, it is clear that it was introduced with a view to the 2007 general election. At that time, funds were being sent around the country in a most flaithiúil way. I do not believe anyone gave any sort of in-depth thought to where it would lead. In essence, it was directed at the kind of people we hoped it would help. I do not believe any overall thought - good or bad - was put into the scheme. Certainly, no thought has been put into its successor. I suggest that someone in the Department of Finance decided to start making cuts and came up with this scheme. I assume the Minister for Finance was involved in that process. I have to accept what service providers around the country are telling me. They do not think this scheme can be implemented. If it is not ready for next year, and the money that is to be provided is not spent, the only winner will be the Government, which will make more savings.

As Deputy Carey said, hundreds of volunteers have spent endless hours, over many years, getting crèches built in every constituency in the country. There are new crèches in the constituency of the Minister of State, Deputy Moloney, and in my constituency. The volunteers in question have no idea where they stand under the new funding arrangements that will accompany this measure. A fine system was being built, but the rug was pulled out from under the whole thing before we knew it. The Government has been damned with a lack of joined-up thinking over the last ten years. This is another example of it. Surely a lead-in period of five or six years is needed to get schemes of this nature bedded down. Just two years ago, everybody concerned, including officials in the Departments of Social and Family Affairs, Education and Science and Health and Children believed that the early child care supplement represented the best system for this country. All of a sudden, the Government decided to perform an about-turn. While I do not suggest that there is anything wrong with the philosophy that underpins this measure, I am concerned about the stop-start nature of the Government's approach. It seems to perform an about-turn every couple of years. Can the Members of the House imagine how upset the service providers who invested their money are feeling now? It is clear that they are sour about what the Government is doing.

I would like to refer briefly to child benefit. I ask the Minister of State to make his colleagues in the Government aware that the many mistakes they have made over the years will be nothing compared to the reaction they will get if they tamper with child benefit. I mean this genuinely. Child benefit, which is paid principally to the mother, has been of huge help to many families. Even in those households with the highest incomes, the woman of the House often has no access to any money other than that coming from the child benefit scheme. We are now being told that the Government is proposing to use the resources available to it, in the Department of Finance and elsewhere, to provide for a flat rate reduction in the amount of child benefit that is paid. It appears that people at the bottom of the ladder, as defined by various socioeconomic data, will have to take the same beating as this country's top-rated bankers, county managers, Deputies and Ministers. Can the Members of the House imagine the unfairness of that? The Government reaped a whirlwind from the old age pensioners when it tried to take their medical cards, but it should watch for the kind of whirlwind it will reap in this instance.

See this speech in context