Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

The Minister acknowledged the great effort of people in the childcare sector and thanked them for the groundwork they put in prior to the opening of the schools. With all due respect, I imagine that would feel to them a little like the applause the healthcare workers got. They wanted to see significant investment in their services, as did families and parents.

I acknowledge that the Government was focused on ensuring services could stay open when the Covid pandemic hit. That brought home to us how important those service are because unless we have a fully functioning childcare and early years sector, our whole economy stops turning. It is a fundamental cog. It was mooted by the then Taoiseach that it was time to re-envisage our early years sector and use this year as an opportunity to see exactly what we wanted it to do and where we wanted to go, invest significantly in the sector and move more towards a public model of care. I would like to have seen that happen.

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