Marie Sherlock (Dublin Central, Labour)

I thank Sinn Féin for tabling this important motion. It is a pity that the Minister is stepping out because I have some important questions for her, but no doubt the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, will be able to take them up.

There is considerable frustration among parents, early years workers and providers because, while this issue got an awful lot of attention in the run-up to the election, it has really fallen off the bandwagon since then. The hope of families, providers and early years workers that they will see genuine and substantive change in the early years space will not now be realised under the current Government. We await to be corrected on that. The reality is that, for far too many families, the shortage of childcare places is a stress. It often starts in the early weeks of pregnancy and goes on well past the child's first birthday.

We have been running surveys in my constituency for the past two years and have noted some very stark results. Some 30% of parents tell us they wait for 18 months or more to access a childcare place. Over 20% of parents tell us they felt forced to leave their jobs. For all the talk of gender equality, it is mothers who bear the brunt of the lack of childcare spaces. While we very much welcome the conversation on reducing costs, that cannot be isolated from the need to expand greatly the number places. Particularly in Dublin's north inner city but also across the wider Dublin Central constituency, the key call from parents and indeed childcare providers and workers is for more spaces. There was a time when EU structural funds were used to build crèches in Dublin 1 and other parts of the country but that does not happen anymore. For years now, we have been calling on the Government to provide direct State investment.

This brings me to my first question, which is on the building blocks scheme. We campaigned for a long time for it to be introduced. To his credit, former Minister Roderic O'Gorman introduced it. In January of this year, a deadline was set for application by early years providers and they were told they would be notified in February. In April, they were told to be ready and that notification was going to come soon. It is now early May but there has still not been a dicky bird from the Department. We understand that Pobal brought in the OPW to assess the applications. The work on those applications has been completed and they are now sitting on the Minister's desk waiting for approval.

The reality with the building blocks scheme is that the money has to be spent by the end of December this year. Think about the logistics of this. It is now the start of May. If the answer were to be given tomorrow, it would take about six weeks or longer for the e-tenders process to be completed. Then we would be waiting another wee while for construction workers to come on site. Most early years providers are being told now by the builders that they try to line up in advance of the e-tenders process that there is not a snowball's hope in hell that the projects will be finished by December. The reason for this is, and the blame lies squarely with, the Department. Therefore, we need to hear very clear answers for the frustrated early years providers who applied for the scheme in the genuine hope they would be able to expand their early years services but who cannot do so because of the lack of action by the Department.

The second key issue I want to raise this evening is governance. Some 99.9% of providers are brilliant and go above and beyond every single day in the work they do, but there are a few that exploit confusion among parents over fees and the freezing of the fee structure. Last August, we had the revelation that Hyde and Seek was one of a number of crèches found to be overcharging. What I want to understand is whether every parent has been fully refunded. There was fighting talk from the Department last August in this regard. What penalties are in place for providers that breach the fee-freeze rule?

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