Joe O'Toole (Independent)

That is a welcome step. The Minister also said that the county committee on child care would be in a position to give information, support and small grants in order to make it happen, but we need to hear more about that. I have no doubt that Senator O'Meara will have questions to ask about this as well. I would like to know how that proposal will work. I am glad there is a registration process, but I would look for an awful lot more.

More than anything else, I regret that there is no clear commitment or objective to introduce some process for a formal, structured pre-school arrangement. The Department of Education and Science is mentioned, but such a process is missing and should be included. While I welcome some aspects of the budget, I feel that other matters are lacking.

I note that the proposal to create 50,000 child care places is scheduled to occur over the next four years up to 2010, but I do not know how that will work and I certainly want to hear more about it. It seems to be a tax break of some form or another, but I am not a bit convinced by it.

The Leader will recall that recently when we discussed the OECD report on tertiary education, I had some grievous problems with it. One of my objections to the report was that it restricted PhDs to universities. I think Senator Mansergh agreed with me at the time that there was a strong case for linking the institutes of technology into it, as that is where the research and development will take place. I am glad to see that, according to my reading of what the Minister has said in the budget speech, he is now putting it up, as it were, to pitch for it——