James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I respectfully disagree with the Deputy's contention that the Government is putting the cart before the horse. I have already described the child care education and training support programme and the Deputy's contention that there are no services available is simply not true. There is also the after school child care programme, which is designed to support low-income and unemployed people to take up a job, increase their days of employment or take up a place on a Department of Social Protection employment programme. It provides after school care for primary school children of eligible parents for a period of 52 weeks. The programme contributes €40 per week for an after school place or €80 per week in situations where a pick-up service is available to take the child from school to the child care provider. The programme also provides a full day care rate of €105 per week for a maximum of ten weeks to cater for school holiday periods. In all cases the maximum fee payable by parents is €15 per week. I do not have time to go into detail on all of the other services available, but there is also a community employment child care programme and a community child care subvention programme.

Deputy Healy would have to agree that in the past we saw ample examples of Government throwing money at problems but not fixing them.

In this instance, we want a properly costed and analysed plan that will give the Government access to a range of options that will allow it to provide the greatest benefits for parents and children from the money it collects from taxpayers and spends in this area.

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