Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

I thank Sinn Féin for tabling this motion. The starting point for a discussion on childcare in this country is acknowledging that the system we have is thoroughly broken from almost every point of view. It is broken from the point of view of parents, who are struggling and scrambling to try to find places for their children, and then trying to afford another mortgage, in effect, to get their children the care they need. This is a crisis for women in particular, on whom the burden of caring falls if they cannot find or afford childcare, which restricts their ability to go back to work in many cases. It is a crisis for children who are not getting the care they need and deserve. It is a crisis for the small providers who find themselves squeezed in a very difficult situation and it is a crisis for workers, who are doing vital and essential work that sets people up for life and, in the majority of cases, are paid poverty wages that are much less than they deserve for the vital work they do. It is a system that is broken and that causes crises for so many people.

The only winners out of the current system are the big providers. They are happy to get State money, happy to charge parents significant amounts of money and happy to pay out small amounts in wages and pocket very significant profits. At its base, the problem comes down to the whole childcare sector model, which is about a reliance on private, for-profit operation, with the mix of State money given to fund the majority of the income the childcare sector gets. It is up to almost 60% at this stage, with just over 40% coming from parental fees. That went even higher in the course of the pandemic as private childcare providers were bailed out with large amounts of public money, which was necessary to keep the whole thing going. The root problem is the for-profit model of childcare, for which the State tries to paper over the cracks with public money, as opposed to saying we need a fundamentally different model that is about free public provision of quality childcare as part of a national childcare service, which could be done. At root, that is what we will come back to again and again in respect of resolving or fixing the broken system and building a very different type of system that prioritises children, parents, workers and so on.

I will read part of an email from a constituent that is very typical of people's experiences and the many stories I hear from friends and so on who are struggling to get childcare and struggling to afford it. The email is from a woman who lives in Hunters Wood in Firhouse. She highlights that there is no childcare local to her but she is also aware there is a serious lack of childcare in Dublin as a whole. She says she cannot return to work until she can find a place. She is on the list for the five local crèches in her area since she was three months pregnant in October 2020. She states that when parents ring crèches asking if there is any update, all they are told is that their child is on the crèche's list. When she asks what the chances are of a place at some stage this year, all the crèche operators say there is zero chance of a place in 2022. One of the crèche operators informed her all along that her daughter is next on its list. When she asked why that operator cannot promise her a place come September, due to children naturally leaving and starting school, the operator explained something to her that should have been explained back in October 2020; her daughter is not next on the list, as had been confirmed all along, she is, rather next on a cancellation list to move onto the actual waiting list. She goes on to say that it a complete mess. She is aware that she lives in an area whose population is nearly fully of young families, hence the demand for childcare, but she asks why local Deputies and Departments are ignoring this issue. She also states that there seems to be no correlation between establishing crèches in areas highly populated with young families. She is aware her scenario is no different than thousands of parents in Dublin. She goes on to make a point about the colossal cost of childcare, but she is not even at the point of being able to pay that colossal cost because she cannot get access. Again, it comes down an absence of planning and this reliance on a for-profit market.

Let us consider the colossal cost. There is a discussion in society about the cost-of-living crisis, which is good. A major part of that crisis for families with young children is the cost of childcare. If we had free, publicly provided childcare, that would have a big impact on how people are experiencing the cost-of-living crisis. It is vital we put forward the free public provision of public goods as part of the answer to the cost-of-living crisis. We have the third most expensive childcare in Europe, with parents paying an average of €800 a month. You hear many stories of people paying more than that.

Most of those parents will be aware that the workers minding their children are some of the lowest paid in Europe, with 60% on less than a living wage and many lacking basic rights like sick pay. It comes back to the point that Ireland has the greatest reliance on private, for-profit childcare in the OECD. The large chains are increasing their grip on the so-called market of childcare and are squeezing large profits out of parents and staff. Instead of this, we need a national childcare service that is free at the point of use and publicly provided, and a public education system.

There are also important issues with the Government's new core funding proposals for the sector. The small providers are telling us that the new approach is skewed in favour of the large chains, which will pocket the lion's share of the funding while the smaller operators will see very little, if any, of it. These are massive chains making millions in profits every year. The Government policy is essentially lining their pockets while many smaller providers are in trouble. They are also very worried that they will not be able to meet the Government's 22 April deadline for applying because they have not yet heard back from the Minister about important questions they have asked and they do not know if they will get a response before the deadline.

The issue of childcare has been put on the agenda because of parents but also because of workers organising, campaigning and getting on the streets together with small providers. Because childcare workers have organised, they have put pressure on the State by fighting for an ERO in order to increase their remuneration to the level of a living wage. However, their perception is that the State is dragging its heels on this. The joint labour committee to look into wages in the sector was established more than nine months ago yet the workers are still left waiting. A recent survey showed that 41% of childcare workers are actively looking for employment in another sector, with low pay being the single biggest factor in encouraging them to do so. The Government cannot and must not delay any longer. We need an ERO to increase the wages of workers in this sector to the level of a living wage. We should really say that the minimum wage for people in this sector and the vital, life-shaping work that they are doing is €15 an hour.

Fundamentally, childcare has been left to the market. That is why we have all these crises that we are in. If we want to see early years education as an integral part of education that is not some sort of add-on that happens prior to school but that is part of education and that should be publicly provided as part of the education system. Just as we made primary education free, secondary education free and, in theory, third level education free, we need to make childcare provision free and bring it into the public system where we guarantee workers decent wages. It would be for the best of all of society. We need a fundamentally remodelled system and a national childcare system as a crucial part of that.

See this speech in context