Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have a conflict in this area because I am a director of a community crèche and have been for many years, long before I even had children. It was one of the most rewarding but challenging committees to be on because on a weekly basis, we had to deal with parents who were making tremendously difficult choices. Those choices continue to be made by families to this very day. They must make decisions about whether to have a child at all or as to whether one parent stays at home or another cuts his or her hours to balance the childcare costs.

The staff within the childcare facilities, who are predominantly women, it has to be said, consistently go to training and education in order to better themselves and make themselves more qualified to care for children, and do so on minimum wage, essentially, to get very little reward for what, in many cases, are extensive qualifications. Right across the western world, childcare is considered a service. If a person provides a service and he or she works in that service, he or she deserves to be remunerated. In recognition that it is a service, however, it should not be the burden that it is on too many families.

This motion puts forward the roadmap to cut childcare costs by two thirds to give those families a break and allow them to actually decide on the size of their families or the jobs they take up on the basis of the merits of those decisions, rather than on the burden childcare costs will be for them. Too often, the Government has failed to recognise the importance of this. We have the worst of both worlds because childcare providers, whether they are community, private or voluntary, are expected to adhere to the rules and regulations that are set down by numerous statutory bodies such as the Minister's Department, Tusla, the HSE and the Department of Education. Yet, when the providers meet a challenge in respect of soaring insurance costs or the increase in fees that are, in many ways, being put on hold for several years, the Minister and his Department say it is none of their business and that it is up to the childcare providers. That is not good enough. Our childcare providers need to be treated as a service and that means they need have the direct financial input that allows them to charge a fair set of fees. Those fees must be reduced by two thirds, as Deputy Funchion's motion before the Minister tonight has set out. I hope the Minister hears that call.

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