Seanad debates

Wednesday, 28 May 2003

Maternity Protection (Amendment) Bill 2003: Second Stage.

 

I live in the real world and I am aware that one could provide many more places with that amount of money. The difficulty is that one cannot have corner shop arrangements whereby someone is free for a couple of hours in an afternoon to provide child care, with someone else coming in at other times. There must be appropriate safeguards. If parents are going out to work, their children, the future of the country, are entrusted to people to look after their welfare. One cannot do this on an ad hoc basis. I decry the fact that child care does not seem to be sufficiently flexible. I would like more flexibility. Unfortunately, because of the situation mentioned, there is a limit to flexibility in this area. We hope the relevant working group will come up with recommendations to enable us to provide more child care places for the money we are spending.

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