Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I commend the 25,000 plus hard-working staff throughout the child care sector. They ensure our children are safe, cared for and, most importantly, happy. They allow parents to go to work confident in the knowledge that our little bundles of joy are receiving the best care possible.

Infancy and preschool is a critical stage of a child's development. It is for these reasons that child care providers shoulder an enormous responsibility, but do we value the role of child care providers enough? I reared my two children for the most part as a working mother and can say that child care was my lifeline. It allowed me to continue working while knowing my two young boys were being provided with the best care, love and attention.

I am concerned about the low pay in the child care sector. It does not reflect the hard work and large responsibility that is placed on the child care sector. Often people are paid the minimum wage or a little above it at the rate of approximately €11 per hour. A minimum FETAC qualification has been introduced which will come in to place from next September. I welcome the emphasis on standards and quality. However, with the low pay and emphasis on further qualification, we may be discouraging some people from entering the sector. We need to restore confidence in those students and prove that it is a sustainable and rewarding sector to enter.

Let us not forget that we have undergone unprecedented difficulties in our country. There are almost 260,000 households with a child under the age of five. That is high compared with other EU countries. This year the Government will also invest almost €260 million in a range of child care services as well as in the provision of children's allowance which is paid monthly. The free preschool year introduced in 2010 was a welcome and innovative step. Almost 68,000 children avail of it. This and other schemes introduced by the Government are testament to our quality child care agenda but we need to do more. I ask the Minister seriously to consider extending and introducing a second free preschool year. This would offer a welcome reprieve to parents.

Child care provision is a nationwide problem. It is the single biggest cost facing families. It costs on average €16,000 per year in Dublin for two children to be minded. Many pay more for child care than they do on a mortgage and parents are under pressure. We all know that child care costs in Ireland are among the highest in Europe.

It is time to stop accepting this as the status quoand find solutions to the problem.

I would also like to emphasise the difficulties that children with disabilities face in accessing the free preschool year. Extra resources are not always provided and prevent children with disabilities from availing of the year. It is something that needs to be addressed.

I welcome the establishment of the cross-departmental group, but it must not be another talking shop. It needs to develop real solutions and suggestions. There are missed opportunities in areas of after-school care.

When I was principal of a primary school with more than 600 pupils, we introduced an after-school club which provided on-site child care with qualified child care workers. The programme has gone from strength to strength in the school. The children are supervised in a fun and safe environment and the hassle of transferring children from school to an off-site after-school child care facility has been eliminated. This could be done in each of our primary schools throughout the country.

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