Luke Flanagan (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent) | Oireachtas source

This is a debate about child care. One part of the child care debate that needs to be aired is the fact that there was a time in this country when one could stay at home and rear one's children. I do not mean that was done by a woman or a man but it was done by one of the parents or perhaps shared between them. When I was growing up my father, as a carpenter and as a man who brought home turf, could manage to pay the mortgage and get us food. The role my mother chose was to make the best use of that money and we got by quite well. Every evening when I came home I was in a very lucky position in that one of parents was there and in my case it was my mother.

I accept that some people might not be satisfied at home and may not consider that role to be fulfilling. Some people hold that view and I can understand why, and in that case they need child care. However, what really drives the need for child care is the fact that a monster must be fed and that is the monster of the massive mortgage that everyone has today. During the past 20 years and probably still today banks will give one as much money as they consider one is capable of paying back. Two people were encouraged to go out to work but that did not make people any richer. What it did was put up the price of housing. Now if one parent decides that he or she wants to stay at home or both parents want to share the duties, they can no longer do that. I return to the point that while some people need child care now, the reality is that people are left with no choice but to have child care. There was the idea that if child care was provided, people would be able to go out to work, but what the hell are people doing when they are at home minding their children? It is the most important job of all and there is lots of work in it. Why is there the idea that people have to get out to do work? Child care is the most important job of all as far as I am concerned.

There is a rush now to turn life into a factory. One does not have time to look after one's children or to look after one's mother. One puts one children in one institution - a child care facility - and one's parents in another institution - an old people's home . Why are we doing that? Are we doing that because we want to do it? When my father gets older, I would like someone in my family to be able to take care of him because he took care of me and I think we should return the favour. That debate needs to be had. It might not be very popular with some people that I would say that perhaps too much work is being done. The reality is that today parents have to do 100 hours work outside the home in order to get by when in the past they could get by with doing 40 and 50 hours work outside the home. We have to question the motivation behind this new way of life. To me, it seems the motivation comes from multinationals which ultimately would like one to work 24-7 and sleep on a bale of hay beside the machine on which one works for them, but we should not let them decide what society is like. We should decide what society is like and we should structure society in such a way that if one wants to look after one's children, one will be able to do so, and if one wants to look after one's parents, one will be able to do so because that it a natural enough thing to do. That is no doubting that I cannot see how anyone would care more than I would for my children and my father, and obviously the same goes for family. They have a natural vested interest in it.

When there was a controversy over problems in crèches, we heard that people may not have the proper qualifications, but what qualifications does one need to have a love for children? One either likes them or one does not. One either has a problem with cleaning a snotty nose or one does not. Paperwork is not going to make one like it. Now we are being told that to get better quality child care, we will have to pay these people even more, and I understand why because they are paid a pittance now. However, there is no logic to that. If we pay them what they should be paid, then the person who has to employ them will have to get even more money and have to work even longer. It is a vicious circle. Can we not sit down and think about this? Maybe there is a better way. There has to be a better way than turning life into something that happens in a factory and it being more efficient to do it a certain way. Families, love and all of that have nothing to do with efficiency. They have got to do with something a lot more important than that.

There needs to be investment in child care facilities where people want it but we also need to try to create a social structure whereby people are not forced into going down this road.

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