Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the action she is taking to make child care more affordable here; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [17522/13]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputy Troy. Since becoming Minister, I have sought, notwithstanding the severe financial constraints faced by the Government, to maintain and increase my Department's investment in early years and child care support programmes. In the budget for 2012, I secured an additional funding requirement of nearly €9.8 million to meet increased demographic pressures and to protect the universality of the preschool year, which is a key programme for Government commitment.

In budget 2013, my colleague, the Minister for Social Protection, and I announced a new €14 million after-school care programme. This will provide important support to parents in low income families wishing to take up employment and ensure that some 6,000 quality after-school care places are provided to support children's development. In addition, I announced a new area-based approach to early intervention and addressing child poverty, including a focus on child care provision.

As the Deputy knows, there are two further child care support programmes, those being, the community child care subvention, CCS, and the child care education and training support, CETS, for those attending education and training. There is also the universal early childhood care and education, ECCE, programme. The CCS programme gives money to many community-based child care services to enable them to provide child care at reduced rates to parents who are in receipt of social welfare payments or are on low incomes. The CETS programme provides €145 towards the weekly cost of full-time child care places to participating child care services in the community and commercial sectors for qualifying trainees and students. Students on part-time courses are funded on a pro rata basis.

In 2013, my Department's total expenditure on child care will be approximately €260 million. This represents a significant investment in supporting parents with the cost of child care.

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With respect to future developments, I have indicated my objective numerous times to seek to introduce a second free preschool year, which would represent an equivalent saving of approximately €3,000 in child care costs for parents, as well as contribute to improved educational and developmental outcomes for children. However, any development that involves further preschool provision would require considerable additional funding.

The reality is that this country has a poor record in developing an architecture for quality, affordable child care provision. Of the total so-called child care spend since 2000, more than 60% has been on bricks and mortar or direct cash payments to parents, with less than 40% spent on developing an effective system of quality, affordable child care provision. In the coming years, I hope that we will be in a position to address this legacy through increased investment as the economic and budgetary situation improves.

As a building block towards a possible second free preschool year, my Department is continuing to work on and invest in improving quality standards and workforce capacity. Future developments relating to early years care and education will be considered during preparation of the new national early years strategy, which is being developed by my Department and will be published later this year.

Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister for her reply. It is fair to say that child care services are not a luxury; they are an essential public good. According on an OECD report, in this country, unfortunately, working families on an average wage spend 45% of their monthly income on child care costs, while the EU average is 15%. As a country we spend 0.4% of GDP on child care, while the European average is 0.7%. In Scandinavia, the level of expenditure increases to 1.4%.

Families are struggling. They pay full-time child care fees of approximately €1,000 per month. Any families watching the “Prime Time” report recently would not have got a sense from the Minister that she has a plan to tackle the issue. On the “Prime Time” programme in question she indicated that she hoped to introduce a second free preschool year in two years’ time. Preschool care involves three hours a day, five days a week. That will not tackle child care costs. What does the Minister intend to do to ensure we have quality, affordable child care that will allow men and women to go to work if they so wish?

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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This situation did not develop overnight. Let us look at what happened in the past 12 years in terms of investment in child care. Of the money invested in child care, 60% went into bricks and mortar, 40% went on direct payment to parents and there was little focus in recent years on building up precisely what Deputy Troy describes, namely, an affordable child care service for parents across the spectrum. The reason parents are paying so much for child care is because there has not been a policy of subsidising child care. There has been a focus on direct cash payments. There has not been a willingness by the State to subsidise child care for the very parents to whom Deputy Troy refers.

I agree with Deputy Troy that it is not the case that those working in child care are being paid huge wages or that the vast majority of child care services are overcharging - they are not. In order to change the situation Deputy Troy describes, more investment by the State will be required. As growth returns to the economy I would like to see the introduction of subsidised child care that will reduce the current heavy costs on parents. I am working towards that aim. I am taking an incremental approach to bring about the kind of changes to which I have referred.

If we brought in a second free preschool year it would save parents approximately €4,000 a year even though it does not involve full day care. That would be a substantial contribution to parents. Of equal importance is the provision of after-school care. It is important to maintain the free preschool year, which is also helping parents, at a time of economic difficulty. It is clear that we cannot implement a new system overnight to replicate what we see in other countries as the cost would be prohibitive, but it remains a goal of my Department to make child care more accessible and more affordable for more parents in this country.

Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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I acknowledge we are in stringent times but child care is an essential public good. The Minister must make it a priority within the Department. She rightly referred to the vast increase in direct payments over the previous ten or 12 years. In a national newspaper article after Christmas the Minister mooted the idea of reallocating a proportion of expenditure from direct payment to child care services. Has such a debate been had at Cabinet level or is it a policy direction which the Minister intends to pursue?

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I am sure Deputy Troy will agree that many parents out there are finding times very difficult and the cash payments are incredibly important to them, obviously. The point I was making regarding the spend was to explain that we do not have more accessible and affordable child care because the money is going on those cash payments. In terms of the future direction and where the money will be found, we would have to consider very carefully any changes to cash payments because families are very reliant on them. That is the reality. That is why the incremental approach I am suggesting with regard to the second free preschool year is realistic, at present. However, as soon as there is more economic growth, I agree with the Deputy that this should be a priority area for us as a society and for this Government. We must examine, as carefully and comprehensively as we can, ways in which we can improve the situation in this country so that we have more affordable and accessible child care. Building up the infrastructure that would allow that is extremely costly and that is why I am outlining the various steps we are taking towards that goal.

Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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The physical infrastructure is in place.

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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We will certainly be examining this in the context of budget discussions for 2014.