Robert O'Donoghue (Dublin Fingal West, Labour)

I hear every day from women in my constituency in particular that they cannot find childcare. I hear mostly from women about being forced to give up their careers, to defer returning to education and to delay starting and expanding their families. We have moved from the marriage bar of the past to what can only be described as a modern-day family bar where the costs and unavailability of childcare are dictating deeply personal life choices. Some €1.37 billion could be far better used to begin nationalising the wages in the sector and starting the transition to a public system of early education and school-age childcare that is accessible for all.

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