Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

There are some good things going on in America. Reference is frequently made to Nordic countries. They are moving away from home care allowance type schemes due to their adverse impact on women's employability and financial independence later in life. I would encourage a vigorous gender impact analysis before importing such policies here.

As I am sure the Deputy will remember, not long ago we had a policy that provided €1,000 per child to families to spend on early childhood care and education as they chose. It was available to all families, whether their children were being cared for in a crèche or by a child minder, parents or other relatives. This early childhood subsidy policy did not create equal access to preschool services and Ireland was widely criticised for failing to provide universal preschool provision. The Deputy knows this as he was in the coalition Government when the early childhood subsidy was discontinued and replaced by the universal free preschool year, the ECCE scheme. I hope the Deputy is content that the ECCE scheme is used by the vast majority of parents in Ireland and the take-up of the scheme is 96% of all eligible children.

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