Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Indeed, there is nothing to stop the costs rising further as compliance requirements increase and the costs of same get passed on to parents, thus wiping out any benefit from the national childcare scheme. Costs are already unaffordable and there has been a failure to deliver new crèche places as part of major residential developments. The fact that those places were in the plans and were a condition of planning permission but were not provided is absolutely unacceptable.

I ask the Minister to consider meeting this group of parents. They are not looking for a fight with her. They want to explain the issues to her from their point of view. They want her to understand the question of affordability, the specifics of their case and the problems more generally being faced in the entire south Dublin area. They would appreciate the chance to engage with her. I am sure that Deputies from other areas would want to make the same case but south Dublin has the highest costs and the biggest capacity problem in the country.

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