Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will speak as quickly as I can.

I wish to highlight the childcare pressures in my constituency. I know of a 41-year-old professional woman who has a four-and-a-half-month-old baby. If she gets a childcare place for her baby in order for her to return to work, it will cost her between €1,200 and €1,300 per month. She is a single mother who gets the one-parent family payment, but that is offset by tax on maternity benefit. The cost of childcare in my constituency is 60% higher than it is in Carlow and 30% higher than the national average, and that is if someone can even get it.

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