Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Sinn Féin remains absolutely committed to delivering a public model of childcare, but we cannot wait on the perfect - things have to get better. While I accept there have been changes, parents and children need us to ensure we deal with the issues of affordability, accessibility and availability. Those are vital. Our plan is straightforward, namely, €345 million to deliver €10 per day childcare for parents. That is real affordability. We would allocate €53.8 million to provide an initial pay increase of €1.50 per hour to staff, with a commitment to further increases. We would allocate €106 million to extend maternity and parental benefit in order that parents can be with their child for its first year, and a further contingency fund of over €200 million to cover the cost of further pay increases for staff, increased core funding and expansion of capacity. We have given an absolute commitment to a review of core funding. We appreciate the particular issues there are with costs, the severity of the viability issue and we need to get into the nitty-gritty of what is necessary with respect to increases to core funding to ensure providers can continue delivering an essential service.

We have all been contacted by people, such as a lady in my constituency. She says she has two creches with 37 staff whom she supports. She says she is not sleeping at night and is worried about what she is going to do in future. She says the childcare system is not fit for purpose. She caters for nearly 200 children in both services and works an average of 80 hours per week, including weekends. She says the provider at all times has been left out and that she was reaching out to me to see if anything can be done to support the many stressed-out providers.

I need to put a question to the Minister and Minister of State that has come to me from a constituent. It relates to a legally registered children's residential centre with full registration. It is through the inspection. All the staff are fully Garda vetted but the centre is not in operation at the minute. I will pass on the details and hope the Minister and Minister of State can answer my question on that particular issue and we can get it addressed.

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