Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)

To the Taoiseach, Tánaiste and the Minister of State, I have to say I was in disbelief at what was announced on childcare in the budget yesterday. In the last two weeks it has been reported that between Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil there has been a wrestle between reducing costs for parents or building childcare capacity. This budget does neither. We are all well aware that there are three big issues. They are the cost for parents, the severe lack of childcare places and pay and terms and conditions for our early years educators. If there was anything in this budget that would significantly make a difference on any of those three, I would probably be the first on this side of the House to welcome them, and I would. However, we have serious issues with all three and nothing in the budget announced yesterday is going to make a difference. The prime example of that is the announcement made in the speech by the Minister, Deputy Chambers, that the building blocks infrastructure programme will fund extensions of existing community centres and schools to deliver approximately 2,300 additional childcare places. When we have a need of approximately 40,000 children on waiting lists for childcare in the State, we are talking about extensions to schools and community centres. There is planning permission and build. How long would that take? I would bet that nothing has been done and there has been no conversation with the Department of education about extensions to their schools. We have schools, and I have them in my constituency, waiting 20 years for new builds. We have special classes that were promised modular that never came, and we are talking about extensions to schools. Most of the boards of management in the State would not allow private childcare providers on their grounds in the first place.

As to community centres, the easiest approach - I genuinely thought that the Minister, Deputy Foley, was going to do this - is to use the building blocks extension scheme, which allows providers to buy or build new. Expanding the scheme so that people could buy existing buildings could easily have been done. That would build immediate capacity in the sector. It would be done quickly, and it would mean there was not an empty building in the centre of a town either. I cannot understand how that has been overlooked for 2,300 places that in reality will never come. They certainly will not come for the children on waiting lists today or for the parents who are trying to get childcare places but who are not going to get them through an extension to a school any time soon. That is a good idea in future, and it should be planned for, and if we decide that we are going to colocate, then fine, but that is not going to do anything for the 40,000 children who have no childcare places today.

Regarding these three issues, the only thing really of any merit in the budget book is the additional 35,000 children who will go into the national childcare scheme. I heard the Minister, Deputy Burke, on the radio this morning. He announced it as 35,000 additional childcare places. We need to be very careful in what tell people this actually means. It does not mean 35,000 childcare places. I only wish it did. There is nothing announced in the budget that will drastically or in any modest way reduce childcare fees for parents. Some are paying €1,000-plus per month for childcare. Despite all of the talk in relation to childcare and childcare costs, there is absolutely nothing that will make a difference for parents.

I spoke to my brother the other day. He talked about a lady at work who was three months overdue to come back to work. She cannot go back. Her poor mother, who is battling cancer, would have taken the child but is not in a position to do so. There is no childcare place. She has been out of work for three months on top of her maternity leave. That is just one case that shows the real impact this is having on families and parents, primarily women, and also on our economy.

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