Aidan Farrelly (Kildare North, Social Democrats)

I thank the Minister for the opportunity to speak and to echo the comments made so far by my colleagues Deputies Kerrane and Wall on the eve of our first committee meeting that will take place tomorrow. The brief the Minister has before her is one that is ripe with optimism about impact and outcomes for children, young people and those affected by issues of equality in our society.

I wish the Minister continued success in her brief over the next couple of years. Having had the honour of becoming spokesperson for children for the Social Democrats, over the last couple of months I embarked on a series of engagements with stakeholders involved in childcare and early years services, as I am sure the Minister has done in her brief. I have met unions, private providers and parents. Notwithstanding the very impressive sum the Government is committing to the sector, I appeal to the Minister to question, over the term of this Dáil, the way in which we are spending money. I am aware that I probably sound like a broken record here, and I apologise to colleagues for that, but our expenditure really does remind us of the way in which we used to speak about healthcare. Reference was made to record budget after record budget but, for so many, the outcomes associated with how they interacted with the sector did not change or improve. The Minister does not need me to tell her about the position of so many who are trying to access childcare and early years services, certainly where populations are growing at very unsustainable rates on foot of housing development and growth. Deputy Wall and I have both experienced this in Kildare. We must question the way we distribute funding through early years services and whether our childcare model represents the right way to do things.

I have raised the issue of páistecare in this House before. It is something I hope to raise with the committee. I appeal to the Minster to consider a special committee on this in the Oireachtas. We should do for childcare and early years education what we did for health through Sláintecare. This would mean working with key stakeholders to spell out a vision for the future of our early years and childcare sectors. Deputy Wall has already referred to the recruitment and retention issue facing the phenomenal staff who are working for our children, families and communities, and to the ability to access services and the way in which we are delivering capital projects. A key to success in this regard for the Government would be to really ramp up the community childcare facilities.

I used to work in the LHD in Newbridge as a youth worker and I saw at first hand the incredible work being done there. It was a really positive example of what community childcare can look like. The outcomes for the children involved were remarkable. I appeal to the Minister to genuinely consider this model alongside considering a vision for the future of childcare and early years services that entails a public model that would complement the private model. As we did with the healthcare system, let us consider it together. We have a genuine opportunity to do that.

I echo Deputy Wall’s comments on family resource centres. I worked in some and worked in collaboration with many as a youth worker over the years. If you want bang for your buck in terms of investment, you will not find much better than the family resource centre in your community. We believe every community should have one. Their cost is minuscule considering their impact on children, young people, adults and communities. They are hubs, supportive places, spaces for information-sharing and ultimately places where children, young people and their families can be, learn and develop together. I encourage the Minister to continue to prioritise investment in family resource centres to get to a place where we might be considering a universal approach to family resource centre delivery in terms of capital projects.

Specifically on disability, I have experience of working as a social care worker in the St. John of God services in Celbridge, County Kildare, and Walkinstown, Dublin, and I have worked with the Ability programme in Kildare. All of these programmes are doing phenomenal work but, as the Minister will be very much aware, they are doing it on a bit of a shoestring. I really meant it when I said the Minister will not find better bang for her buck than in the brief she holds. Any euro spent in the sector under her brief will be returned to the State and society tenfold.

I really welcome our speaking so positively this evening about increased budgets and I wish the Minister and those working with her in her Department continued success. However, with regard to childcare and early years services, we will have to press pause at some point and question the way in which we are distributing the funding. Is it being spent in the right way to yield the maximum output for children, staff and families?

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