Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I join my colleague, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, in making the case for the M20 between Cork and Limerick. There is some mood music in what is said in the expenditure report but there is not actually a figure for the proposal to bring it to planning. It would be very useful if we had some clarity about this. It is not just about Cork or Limerick, it is about the south-west and the entire region of Munster in terms of balanced regional economic growth.

I want to speak on the issue of the affordable childcare scheme. I am very confused about what was announced in the budget yesterday. In his speech, the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, spoke specifically about increasing the threshold for eligibility for the childcare scheme. He spoke about increasing the base income threshold from €22,000 to approximately €26,000 and the maximum income threshold going from €47,500 to €60,000. Fast forward to today, and at the press conference of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs I could glean very little that suggested an affordable childcare scheme is up and running, notwithstanding the announcements on increases in the thresholds. I took some notes, and I hope I will quote the Minister, Deputy Zappone, correctly. She will correct me if I am wrong. When she was asked about the qualifications for the increases and the IT infrastructure to underpin it she stated:

I would say the qualifications for the increases, effectively in raising the thresholds not only are going to be doing that which impacts the increases, but in order to implement that change, we will also have the information technology system in order to implement the way in which this will be administered.

What the information technology system will do is, as a parent, you will be able to sit at your computer, you will put in your PPS number and with your consent, information coming from the department of Revenue, and also the Department of social protection will feed into the calculation, along with the ages of your children, the amount of time you want them to go into childcare, and out of that to determine a subsidy per child, per week.

To that extent the qualifications are set, the net income thresholds are determined by the net income taking away tax, PRSI, USC, pension contributions. All of that will be very clearly laid out technically. But part of the objective calculation is to determine what is the subsidy rate for your household income and your circumstances in terms of children.

I am quoting the Minister. These are my notes based on what the Minister said, and she will correct me if I am wrong. The key issue is that we have had an announcement on an increase in the thresholds that gives the impression that an affordable childcare scheme is now up and running but the evidence 24 hours after the announcement seemed to be that the affordable childcare scheme is anything but up and running and there is still, in spite of numerous announcements, a lack of an IT infrastructure. When parents who head the announcement in the budget yesterday go to the website of the Department of Children and Youth Affairs there is no portal or IT infrastructure that allows them to see whether they fit the income threshold increases, whether they are eligible for the scheme or what they will be able to avail of in terms of a subsidy.

This is smoke and mirrors. If I look at the Department's documentation where it states there are changes to the affordable childcare scheme, it states these increased thresholds will mean thousands more families will benefit from the new affordable childcare scheme, once it is launched at the end of 2019, and they will see their childcare costs tangibly reduced. We have now reached a situation in the House where announcements are made in 2018 for budget 2019 that will not come into effect until the end of 2019. In effect, the people who are supposed to benefit from these schemes, those on base incomes up to the new threshold of €26,000, and those on up to €60,000, which is the new threshold for the maximum income, will not see the benefits of this until 2020.

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