Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I also welcome and am happy to support this motion. As will be obvious from all the contributions here this evening, there are huge pressures on the child care sector. The sector has developed rapidly since the late 1990s, which is a very welcome development. I know from representing two rural counties that up until that time, there were little or no services in rural Ireland. Thankfully, as Deputy Rabbitte noted, the community child care sector plus the private operators have enlarged capacity hugely and good services are spread throughout the country in both rural and urban Ireland.

It is obvious there is a need for increased investment. We need to reduce the cost for parents and we also need to reward the skills, professionalism, care, commitment and diligence of child care workers as well. I am glad the Minister refers to the "child care professionals". Those of us in public life for some years in different roles went to different ceremonies, events and centres and encouraged child care professionals to up-skill continually and to pursue FETAC courses and achieve different levels of qualifications. We were encouraging them to do that and it is always on the basis that people should be rewarded for the additional skills and professionalism they bring to their jobs. Sadly, that is not happening.

I also want to refer to the comment of Deputy Michael Moynihan with regard to bureaucracy. I spoke to a private child care provider the other evening and she emphasised to me that under no circumstances would she ever compromise on standards but she said we need to take a reality check with regard to some of the regulations and bureaucracy. None of us here wants to see any compromise on standards. We want the proper standards to be adhered to at all times. If we are to develop the sector further we need to reward child care professionals. We need to ensure that community child care is adequately funded by the State as well and that private operators are able to continue to operate as well. The last thing we need to see, particularly in the sparsely-populated areas that I represent, would be the closure of any facility. If that happens, there will not be a new one re-opening.

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