Kathleen O'Meara (Labour)

My colleague, Senator McCarthy, may be here to share time. Having listened to the members of the Government side one would think we were living in Utopia. There is no doubt the position has improved enormously in recent years, through the combined effort of all partners. I agree with Senator Dardis when he refers to the other members of the European Union and particularly the new member states who ask how we did it. We know how we did it and we have come a long way.

However, the fact is there are glaring inequities in society which we could tackle but which the Government chooses not to tackle. I welcome the additional funding provided in the area of disability, in particular. How long have people waited for it? It is long overdue. There are other issues which are long overdue for assistance and for which the Government could do something.

On Monday a lady visited my office in a state of considerable distress. She and her husband are pensioners in their late sixties and their pension is their only income. They have returned from England. Their son is 22 years of age and they decided to support him in going back to college. He receives no grant and they are unable to support him. He has attempted to live on very little while attending college in Cork. She told me they had arrived at a position where they simply could not afford to support him in college any more and he will probably be forced to give it up. That is the reality for a person in Ireland today who is not living in Utopia. For all the advice I could give, the amount she could get amounted to very little because of the system and the fact that he is a mature student. That he remained in employment until September means he does not qualify for support.

According to the lady, an official public servant informed him that he should have given up work six months previously in order to qualify. That is indicative of the quirks in the system. If he had been unemployed for six months he would qualify for support but he chose not to be unemployed because he wished to support his parents who were pensioners. They want to give him the support he needs in college but they cannot afford it. The cost of living, particularly bills, is so high it is eating into their income and any savings they may have.

This is an extraordinary state of affairs in terms of the kind of country we think we live in versus the reality for some people. Many of them have high medical bills and do not qualify for a medical card. In the recently announced Estimates hospital charges were increased. This is the reality. A two-tier medical card has been introduced and fewer are getting the kind of support to which they would have been entitled. The medical card scheme has been steadily eroded while stealth taxes have increased. The Estimates and this budget show no sign of dealing with that issue. While I welcome the increased investment and increased spending, particularly in the area of disability, it is long overdue.

An indication of the kind of country we are is evident from how the Government chooses to spend the country's wealth and there are many examples. I shall deal the area of child care on which I have done some research recently. According to a survey from the Central Statistics Office carried out less than two years ago and published last year, over 42% of all families with pre-school children rely on non-parental care to mind their children. A large number of working parents rely on unpaid relatives to care for their children. The number who pay a carer, relative, crèche or Montessori school to care for their children on a full-time basis has reached a high figure compared to what it was in the past. Some 50% of women of child rearing years are in the workforce. It is great that people have that choice. On the issue of pre-school children, including babies, 20,000 families pay a carer, 15,500 pay crèche and Montessori fees and 8,000 pay a relative. According to the survey 23,000 have a relative who is not paid to care for their child. The cost of child care is so high that it is becoming a disincentive for couples to have large families and to remain in the workforce.

I am aware from anecdotal evidence that the cost of child care in Dublin is approximately €150 per week. If one has two children the cost may not be €300 because of economies of scale and so on but it is a considerable amount of money. If one has a third child, one of whom is school-going, and the two younger children are in a crèche, the amount one has to pay for child care is prohibitive. There is evidence, particularly after the birth of a third child, that one parent, usually the mother, opts to stay at home.

On the European league table Ireland ranks lowest in terms of support for working parents. Not only that, we have yet to look at how we might invest in a programme of pre-school education. The voluntary sector, the nurseries and the Montessori groups, have provided great leadership in this area and there are many good quality pre-school arrangements in place. However, State support does not exist except in some pockets of disadvantage. A report by the National Competitiveness Council entitled the Competitiveness Challenge 2004, in a section dealing with pre-primary initiatives, refers to pre-primary education and the importance of investment. It refers to how governments across the world have developed pre-primary policies that stimulate early childhood development and the importance of it. It states: "There is strong evidence, therefore, that targeted pre-primary interventions could help to address educational disadvantage in Ireland, and in particular help to lower the still unacceptably high drop-out rate from secondary level education in Ireland."

In fact, the drop-out level is 18.2% and has remained at that level despite improved economic performance and an improved standard of living and so on. The experts would say we have a stubborn problem in regard to school drop-out levels particularly in teenage years which is not being addressed. One of the reasons is that the origin of the problem is not at second level but at pre-school level, as the Leader will be aware.

The report further states:

While the merits of such interventions [that is, pre-primary interventions] have already been considered in Ireland from a social policy perspective, their potential long term competitiveness benefits have not received much attention. As knowledge becomes the basis for competition, education is increasingly important to economic performance.

I put it to the Minister that our failure to invest in pre-primary initiatives is having and will have a detrimental effect on our ability to compete. This is not my opinion, it is the opinion of the National Competitiveness Council. The report goes on to state:

As knowledge becomes the basis for competition, education is increasingly important to economic performance. The 18.2% of students currently not completing secondary level education represent an untapped resource for the economy. They represent a decrease in the average productivity of our workforce. Furthermore, our innovative and entrepreneurial ability as a nation is below its potential as the educated proportion of the workforce, from which the majority of ideas and business start-ups flow, is not maximised. It is imperative that we increase the numbers of our citizens that can participate fully in the knowledge economy.

This is a plea from the competitiveness council to invest in pre-primary initiatives. Given that we have a world class economy, or so we are told, why do we not have a world class pre-school education system? We place very high value on our primary school system. Everyone agrees this should be the case because we all want our children to get the best possible primary education. While we know the importance of pre-school education, it continues to be ignored to our cost. The words "child care" did not appear in today's Budget Statement.