Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. To follow on from my colleague, Deputy Tóibín, we have already debated school transport in this Chamber today. I am afraid it was the Department's failure and that of the lead Minister to plan for such a situation whereby we have eroded and depleted the operators' sustainable and viable operations through poor planning. We no longer have bus operators. For years they have been told about these problems, but we now find ourselves unable to provide buses to get children to school. I am very concerned. I am here on a cautionary basis to say that while the Minister's intentions are good, and the populace in general believe they are paying less for childcare, I can see very soon, maybe in a year or two, that we will not have providers because the Government is not listening to them.

They are working off 2017 rates in a time when the costs of living, energy and everything else have increased well in excess of 30% to 40% of what they were operating at in 2017. It is not sustainable.

I attended a meeting called by the childcare providers of the south east during the summer recess. I was the only Deputy in the south east who attended. Predominantly, the meeting was filled with women, who are providing the services. At least 20% of the providers had exited the core funding model and they could not impress enough upon those who were left that they had no such issues and were readily receiving an extra 40% from parents to cover their costs.

Now, something is wrong somewhere. I do not know what the Minister's business background is but I know what mine is. If something is not sustainable, then one does not borrow money to keep it going. It is necessary to exit and start another business or to very quickly exit core funding, which is where the problem is. Staff are being paid in the region of €13 an hour and even the operators would concede it is not enough. Based on the Minister's model, though, they cannot pay the staff any more because they must cover their costs. No person with business acumen pays the staff over and above where he or she can make any margin of profit. I left a business where my profit margin was 3% for hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of investment and risk. That is not sustainable in the childcare model.

I am cautioning the Minister, therefore, not to ride off into the sunset, because this is probably where he will be when this issue comes up in two years' time. I refer to not having enough childcare providers then. We cannot pay section 39 operators, who are now predominant in the care of our most vulnerable. The Government is refusing to recognise this point. We do not have bus operators to take our children to school. We do not have gardaí, because we cannot recruit them due to the terms and conditions being so bad. We do not want there to be a lack of childcare providers and a situation where our mothers leave the workforce because they must look after their children and drive them to school. This is where I see this going, so I ask the Minister to take this issue very seriously.

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