Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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22. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the way she will protect against the dual income trap, as articulated by a person (details supplied), the result of which is a greater level of support being provided for one parenting choice over another; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [33818/16]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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Why are we setting what Senator Elizabeth Warren has described as a dual income trap? In America, the experience was that incomes doubled because everybody started working, but disposable income fell due to a bidding war for property and the costs of health care, transport, tax and child care went up. Couples were left worse off. They were working all the time but were poorer and exposed. Where one person lost his or her job, the couple faced bankruptcy, which has happened wholesale in the USA, unable to cater for a family member who fell sick or children with special needs or any other variation from the hard-nosed economic model of getting everyone working all the time. That is what we are doing in our tax individualisation system, with our lack of care for caring work in our social welfare system and, now, in the new policy initiative which discriminates against the very parents who are most at risk in the dual income trap, those left on a single income. Why are we doing that?

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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The single affordable child care scheme is a major initiative I am pursuing specifically to ensure that the costs of child care are lowered for families, in particular those on lower incomes. Irish child care costs are among the highest in the world and the burden on many families is unacceptably high. While this aspect of the Irish situation is similar to the USA, in other respects the situation in Ireland is quite different. Some countries are seeing undue pressure on women to enter the workforce or to return to work immediately after giving birth. However, the OECD and the European Commission have noted that the participation of women in the labour force in Ireland is significantly lower than in other countries. Parents should be able to access all the social, personal and economic benefits of participation in the labour force if they so choose while also being afforded the necessary flexibility and support to enable them to care for their children, particularly during their crucial early years. I am committed to improving the situation of all parents and, in particular, all children, whatever care arrangements are chosen, and to reflecting international evidence on how to attain the best outcomes for children in policies brought forward by my Department.

I support the extension of parental leave for parents and will continue to work with my Cabinet colleagues to achieve this. The Government has also provided additional support for stay at home parents through the home carer tax credit, which has been increased to €1,100 per year.

The single affordable child care scheme has been criticised by some who claim that I am somehow discriminating against parents who remain at home to care for children or child minders or relatives who provide care for children. This is absolutely not the case and I am keen to advance support for all of these families, whether by enabling child minders to participate in the affordable child care scheme or by providing other means of support to families. If the Deputy has suggestions as to how I might address these needs, I would be happy to discuss these important issues with him.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I do not recognise the OECD or the European Commission as neutral observers. They are biased, in the sense that they are obsessed with the whole notion of economic growth and, in the case of countries which have a falling population, with trying to get as many people into the workforce as possible. They are pump priming the dual income trap, as they did in the US.

In response to the Minister's question on what we might do, I would take the evidence from Robert Putnam's latest book, Our Kids, and examine what the American model did. It destroyed social capital and created a deep divide in the country. We have to support parents on low incomes, in particular lone parents who lose out in a dual income trap society. However, we should listen to what Putnam said. It would be far better to go in the direction in which we were going, namely be neutral and give a cash payment to parents. That is what gives them security at the most critical point in time when we are growing our young children's brains.

All of the evidence, including the latest Growing Up In Ireland survey, shows that we should favour all parents, and not discriminate against some, which, I am afraid, is what is being done.

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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The dual income trap which the Deputy mentioned refers, as he knows, is the subject of a popular book written by Senator Elizabeth Warren and her daughter. It discusses the financial difficulties experienced by American middle-class families with children due to the steady rise in many fixed costs such as health care, child care and finding a good home. Senator Warren and her daughter argue that two income families today actually have less discretionary income left over compared to single income, mostly male breadwinner, families a generation ago.

However, their solution to the issue is to manage living costs for these families, such as housing, health care and education, and not to move back in time to an era when women were not given the choice to have a career and earn their own money. Instead, they argue that the solution to financial hardships lies in the sustainable pricing of necessary services.

One of the practical policy options they advocate is offering vouchers to families so they can send their children to good schools anywhere they choose. The book has its critics as well as its defenders, but we also must remember that it discusses the economic lives of the American middle classes.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I am a defender of the book and its analysis because I can see what it describes happening before my eyes in this country. Parents are experiencing rising mortgage, health insurance and transport costs because of the American economic model we are adopting.

I fully agree with the Minister that we have to address the rising cost of child care, in particular for those on lower incomes. The way to do that is to support all parents equally and get the budget allocation from the Minister for Finance. If we are serious about the most important task in our country, which is raising children, we should give parents the power to make the call how they do that.

We should not set up a system that discriminates against one form or the other and which will only reinforce the dual income trap. We need to listen to what Senator Warren said. We should provide support to everyone equally and let parents decide on the best way to spend their money. That gives them security and breaks the economic model towards which we are going. We have seen its effects on America and in the election there today. It kills social capital and a good environment in which to raise children.

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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There are some good things going on in America. Reference is frequently made to Nordic countries. They are moving away from home care allowance type schemes due to their adverse impact on women's employability and financial independence later in life. I would encourage a vigorous gender impact analysis before importing such policies here.

As I am sure the Deputy will remember, not long ago we had a policy that provided €1,000 per child to families to spend on early childhood care and education as they chose. It was available to all families, whether their children were being cared for in a crèche or by a child minder, parents or other relatives. This early childhood subsidy policy did not create equal access to preschool services and Ireland was widely criticised for failing to provide universal preschool provision. The Deputy knows this as he was in the coalition Government when the early childhood subsidy was discontinued and replaced by the universal free preschool year, the ECCE scheme. I hope the Deputy is content that the ECCE scheme is used by the vast majority of parents in Ireland and the take-up of the scheme is 96% of all eligible children.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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I fully support the ECCE scheme and am very glad it is in place. That does not mean that we take an approach which all the experts says is not the right approach, namely 40 hours care. The Nordic model was mentioned by the Minister. There are brilliant examples from those countries.