Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will support this motion because it is very important. We need childcare professionals and we need mothers and women in the workforce. They need to work to keep their homes, so we need to help those people, along with childcare professionals. The motion calls for extending parent's leave and benefit schemes to ensure parents have the choice to remain with their baby in the first year of its life. No one can compensate for a mother in the home minding her children and bonding with them for a year or more, and if we can support women to stay in the home longer with their children, perhaps we should look at something like that.

I have been around long enough to remember when children helped their grandparents and the grandparents helped the children. The grandparents kept the children from slipping into a barrel of water or falling into the fire, and the children brought in the turf and maybe a cup of tea and helped the grandparents, perhaps allowing them to stay in their homes longer. We have seen too many cases of grandparents being moved into nursing homes. They say it is like being in a departure lounge. It is sad when you hear them say something like that.

Yes, life has moved on and women and mothers are working, as they have to do, which I appreciate and understand, but there are difficulties. Even healthcare professionals will tell you they are not paid properly. There are problems during the summer holidays when children are at home and are not in the crèche or pre-school. These mothers find it difficult during the holiday time to survive, and that is not good enough. The workers should be paid all year round and creche owners should also be better supported financially with better conditions. They do a great job and they are professionals, as they have to be. They are vetted and everything has to be right. We appreciate what they are doing but we need to support them more.

I will definitely support the motion and I look forward to matters being improved. One of the issues we are met with at the doors all the time is childcare and the funding of it. Families are in financial trouble trying to pay for all the demands they meet in running their home, minding their children and looking after them.

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