Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for Children and Family Affairs, Ms Zappone, for everything she has been doing for children. My thanks also to all our front-line and essential workers who are keeping us safe during this time. My thanks to everyone who is leaving their family day in and day out to join the fight against Covid-19. Others are spending day in and day out with their families. I wish to pay tribute to them as well.

In particular, I wish to pay tribute to parents throughout the country. Parenting in Covid-19 is tough out. It comes with considerable added pressure, heightened tensions and raw emotions. Parents' skills have been stretched and their patience has been tested. Today, in over 850,000 households, parents are double-jobbing as home school teachers. They have had to become technologically able to access schoolwork online and intellectually able to teach it. If they have teenagers, they are trying to coax them away from their friends on the green, smartphones or online games and encourage them instead into the possibly less attractive world of schoolwork and exercise. If they have children preparing for the leaving certificate, then they have had to become guidance counsellors leading them through what is traditionally a stressful time during a unique period of uncertainty. If they have toddlers, they have had to become preschool teachers, experts at arts and crafts and ways of developing their child's creativity and imagination in an entertaining way. If they have a child with special needs, then they are doing their utmost to create a new routine amid chaos. Many parents have children spanning different age groups and they have had to learn how to prioritise what is virtually impossible. All that is before they start cooking, cleaning or, as in the new trend, baking.

Every parent has had to parent at a new level. They are managing their children's anxieties and worries through uncertainty. They are managing their children's development and education through unprecedented times and it is tough going. They love having more time at home with the children but it is full-on. It is particularly challenging for working parents who are struggling to balance all of these new demands with working from home or working on the front line. These parents are not simply double-jobbing; they are triple-jobbing. I have many friends in that situation and I am in awe of them. I am so proud of them and so impressed by their ability to do it all. However, I know that many parents are feeling the opposite of impressive. Instead, many are doubting their abilities or feeling guilty about having to juggle so much. They are afraid they are not doing enough or that they are neglecting their child or professional responsibilities or both. They are afraid they are not as good at this as some of the people who share their perfect stories on Instagram.

However, I would say to any one of those parents, "Please know that it is enough." Their best is all they can give and all anyone can expect of them. I know there will be many parents looking forward to getting a break when this is all over. For some that will be a holiday down the country; for some it will be reuniting their kids with their grandparents and for others - there is no shame in admitting it - it will be going back to work. The only way to make sure those parents can go back to work and contribute to rebuilding our economy is to make sure their childcare services are back in operation. We have seen the plan to reopen childcare gradually but we are still missing the plan for the childcare service itself. I am working with childcare providers in Lucan, Clondalkin, Palmerstown, Newcastle, Rathcoole, Saggart and Brittas, many of whom have not charged one family since March. They have had no income from families in all that time and, like every other business in Ireland that has had to shut its doors, their rents, rates and bills are all still coming through those closed doors.

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