Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As I announced earlier with the Minister, Deputy Foley, and the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, we will have a referendum, or indeed perhaps a number of referendums, in November to modernise our Constitution to enshrine in it equal rights between men and women, to recognise care in our Constitution and to modernise the definition of family so that it is not just families based on marriage that are seen as families through the eyes of our Constitution. Many families are led by grandparents, guardians and often by lone parents. We need to change our Constitution in that regard. We hope and expect to have wording by the early summer and be in a position to have the legislation done in September and have the vote in November. I particularly thank the committee which the Deputy chaired for the really good work it did in that regard. The wording proposed by the committee and the options it came up with will be extremely helpful in getting this done this year. While sometimes in Ireland we may feel we experience referendum fatigue, I actually do not think we have had a referendum in four or five years now, so constitutional change is overdue, especially in this area. We are keen to make it happen.

To answer specifically the Deputy's questions on childcare and tenants' rights, we as a Government have worked very hard to improve quality, capacity and cost when it comes to childcare. The Deputy will be aware that, in January, the vast majority of parents saw a 20% or 25% reduction in childcare fees. We are keen to repeat that in the budget if the public finances allow. That would mean this will be the Government that reduced childcare costs by half. That is not a small thing. I know it will be very welcome to many parents who have been struggling to pay the bills. We are improving quality all the time, which is very important too. It is not just about childcare but also about early years education. It is important we see it in that context. We are working to increase capacity. We know that is a challenge. Of course, as the cost of something is reduced, understandably the demand increases, and that puts pressure on capacity. That is something we always have to take into account.

On giving more people security of tenure, we have changed the law around renters' rights. Renters now get many months' notice before they are asked to quit. That gives them much more time to find an alternative place to rent. The problem is there are not enough alternative places to rent because there are too few landlords in the market. We need to get them back in and scale up cost rental from the Government side. All new tenancies are tenancies of indefinite duration. We cannot apply that retrospectively, but all new tenancies are tenancies of indefinite duration. That is important too. We have also brought in the rent pressure zones and the rent tax credit.

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