Kathleen O'Meara (Labour)

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Parlon, to the House for this debate which I requested. I thank the Leader for facilitating statements on the important issue of child care.

Other speakers have noted that so far all those who have spoken on the subject, with the exception of the Minister of State, have been female. That is not unusual in this House. I hope it is not an indication that this policy area is feminised, in other words one that is only of great concern to women. That said, I would not wish to undermine or downplay the passionate support that many women in the Oireachtas give to this subject. I acknowledge the work of Senator White in this area. I hope her party and the Government begin to listen to her soon.

I will limit my remarks to the equal opportunities child care programme which is the subject of today's discussion. The Minister of State referred to the purpose of the programme. It is clear that the programme and the level of investment in it has made a great difference. We must bear in mind that it was coming from a base where there was effectively nothing. Prior to its inception, health boards were involved in the provision of a small level of child care in the community. The purpose of the equal opportunities child care programme is to improve the quality of child care in Ireland, increase the number of child care facilities in place and to introduce a co-ordinated approach to the delivery of services.

I am a member of the board of the Nenagh child care centre which is a state-of-the-art facility that was opened last September. The Taoiseach visited the centre last Friday. It is a great centre that was built beside the county council offices with support from the council, the health board and the usual funders, including the programme under discussion. It is a fine facility which is doing very well, as I have no doubt it will continue to do. The facility is not the kind of one about which I would be concerned. It is in a heavily-populated area with enough support to allow it to successfully operate within the market.

Two weeks ago I visited some child care facilities in Tallaght with other female members of the parliamentary Labour Party. This arose from concerns expressed by people — again mostly women — who were working in child care facilities and who were concerned about the crisis they face. The problem is not on the capital side. The Minister of State referred at length to capital funding in terms of the programme and the high level of grant aid available, which is excellent. It has resulted in the building of a state-of-the-art facility in Tallaght. The crisis arises in the context of staffing grants. Staffing grants are made available but they are not 100% staffing grants. Facilities operating in disadvantaged areas such as Tallaght simply cannot manage because the people who were using the facilities — who are those one would want to use them — cannot meet the costs which the centre has to charge in order to stay in business.

The EOCP is an excellent programme but it falls short. While a great deal of funding has gone into the programme — Senator White may be interested in hearing this — support for it is less than what the Government affords to the horseracing industry. The Government is giving greater support to the horseracing industry than it is to child care. That fact speaks volumes. The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy McDowell, has announced what appear, when examined on their own, to be considerable amounts of capital funding for this sector. However, the sector is underfunded when one considers what is required on the ground, given that the daily requirements of these centres are not being met, despite this capital funding.

A recent OECD report on this sector stated:

Without public management and sustained public funding, market-led child care provision remains fragmented and inequitable. For this reason, governments in the English-speaking countries are obliged to intervene constantly by increasing child care allowances, reviewing quality provision and even directly funding parts of the system.

We need to consider directly funding part of the system in Ireland, particularly in disadvantaged areas. We are only at the first block or foundation stone of building this process.

The OECD report on early childhood education in Ireland was published in December 2003. It was published against the background of the Barcelona declaration, to which the Minister of State referred, and states that, as EU partners, we are committed to providing child care to at least 90% of children aged between three years and mandatory school age and at least 33% of children under three years of age by 2010. However, we are nowhere near achieving that target.

The current Irish coverage for the three to six age group is the second lowest in Europe, which includes the primary sector. The pre-primary and pre-school sector barely exists. We must recognise and acknowledge the contribution of the voluntary sector, particularly pre-school playgroups and the nurseries association. We must also acknowledge the work done by these groups which are mostly comprised of women battling away to provide a service and a place where children can get the best start in life and receive high-standard provision at an affordable level.

I am sorry the Minister of State, Deputy Fahey, is not in the House to respond to this issue but I will raise it nonetheless because it was raised with me. I did not see the "Prime Time" programme on child care last week because I had a prior commitment. However, I understand the issue of low pay in the child care sector was raised and the Minister of State responded by stating that at least such workers were receiving the minimum wage. If that is not the case, I apologise, but that is what was reported to me.

I would be very disappointed if the Minister of State's attitude was that it is acceptable to operate on the basis of the minimum wage in the child care sector since that reflects a Government attitude that low pay is acceptable in that sector and is being tolerated. Child care in many areas also depends on community child care facilities, FÁS workers, CE scheme employees and so on. This is not necessarily a bad thing but it goes to show how unstable and relatively unsupported the entire sector is. I know people employed on community employment schemes who are doing excellent work, having been well trained on FÁS schemes.

The Centre for Early Childhood Education and Development in Drumcondra, of which Heino Schonfeld is a director, points out that to operate at that level demonstrates a lack of full support and commitment to this area. It is not where we need to be. It would be acceptable in the interim or if it was sporadic but to find that most child care facilities rely on community employment workers to keep costs down and maintain staffing levels is unacceptable.

The capping of staffing grants, to which I have already referred, is having a detrimental effect on child care facilities in disadvantaged and sparsely populated areas. I come from a rural constituency, as the Minister of State, Deputy Parlon, knows since his base is next door to where I grew up. He will know that the population is insufficient in places such as Templederry and smaller areas where the community is trying to develop mother and toddler groups and other daytime child care facilities. Women in these communities are struggling to put in place some facility for their children and by not supporting these women we are cutting off our nose to spite our face. There is much evidence to show that investment in pre-school and early childhood education pays off greatly. This view is supported by the OECD and every other expert.

The Competitiveness Council is not exactly an expert on child care but it is a Government body which is presumably committed to pointing out to us what we need to do to stay competitive. It has stated that the absence of targeted pre-primary initiatives is having an economic impact. It also points out that the school drop-out rate remains the same now as it was during the 1980s when times were much harder. Why is it that despite our economic prosperity and our investment, we are stuck with an unacceptably high level of early school leaving, which means that 18.2% of students currently do not complete second level education? The Competitiveness Council describes this as an untapped resource for the economy which represents a decrease in the average productivity of our workforce. It refers to the merits of targeting pre-primary interventions and states that potential long-term competitiveness benefits have not received much attention. In other words, we have looked at it from the child's point of view but not from that of the long-term health and competitiveness of the economy. It is unacceptable to have that number of students not finishing secondary school, particularly considering our stated objective of becoming a knowledge-based economy. The only way to break this trend is to have well-resourced, targeted intervention at pre-school level.