Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate that. The Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, mentioned his vision for public delivery for childcare. It is a pity that he has not been in government for the past year to have an opportunity to put that vision in place. It is an incredible situation that we are having speeches at the end of this Government's term that should have been made at the start and the subject matter of which should have been implemented. The Minister and this Government have had a significant destabilising effect on the provision of childcare. The Minister spoke about the numbers of new services that are opening in the system and the numbers that are closing. If we look at the lists he is quoting, however, we can see that services which have been closed for three years are still on them. The Minister is not working off up-to-date information as to the services that exist within the system.

I do not ask the Minister to believe me on this; I ask him to speak to the providers that have closed over the past number of years. Dozens of providers that have closed their doors. I ask the Minister to speak to the families who are pulling their hair out trying to get access to childcare and early years education in their localities. They cannot get access to either. Facilities are becoming as rare as hen's teeth. Parents are registering their children with providers as soon as they are born. While the Minister makes a song and dance about the reduction of the level of costs to parents for childcare and the increased investment in it, in reality, there has been a significant destabilisation of the sector because it is simply just not viable for more and more people. That lack of viability is affecting the smaller providers and the providers that are operating in rural Ireland the most. There are now many decent-sized towns where people may have only one or two options available when it comes to childcare.

It is interesting how the Government treats the issue of care. Whether it is childcare, nursing home care or children in State care, what this Government has done is create a system where the staff who work in those areas get some of the lowest wages on offer in the country. We thrust our most important people into this sector and yet the Government pays really low wages to the individuals who work in it. The Government basically devalues the contribution these people make by refusing to pay them proper wages. As a result, there is a high turnover of staff.

Nursing homes are in a similar situation. Many cannot operate in a viable fashion and are closing. The Minister is obviously in charge of children in State care. We know that Tusla, under his authority, is putting children into special emergency accommodation units that are not regulated by the State and that allow for children to go missing. Some of those children are exploited by gangs for sexual exploitation. This is an incredible situation. The whole carer system in this country is an absolute mess.

It is amazing that we have debates of this nature on childcare and that so often the discussion becomes around an ideological flag. I would love to see the proper delivery of public childcare within the State, but the reality is that we are a million miles away from a system that will be able to do that. We are trying to buttress the system that is in place in order that there will at least be some opportunity for parents to get access to childcare. If we want to make sure we have an option for families, the Minister needs to sit down with the providers. I commend the providers and the thousands of those workers who have gone on strike on a number of times outside the Dáil over the past years. The last time they went on strike, the Minister said there was no need for them to do so. I was looking at the balance sheets of some of their businesses and at how in trouble they were and comparing them with a ministerial salary. Listening to a Minister say there was no reason to go on strike was quite incredible.

The first thing we need to do is to invest in those providers to make sure they are viable. We need to invest in the wages to make sure people can get a decent livelihood out of providing care in this State. We also need to ensure that parents have access to affordable childcare in their home towns in order that the providers can live and provide for their own families as well.

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