Seanad debates

Wednesday, 1 February 2006

Child Care Investment Programme: Motion.

 

4:00 pm

Photo of Brian Lenihan JnrBrian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Senators who tabled the motion, which recognises the Government's sustained commitment to the development of quality child care and the measures that made up the child care package announced in budget 2006. An important point to note is that the package is not just for the year ahead but for a number of years thereafter.

I take Senator Terry's point that self-congratulation on the part of Members on the Government benches is not an enjoyable sight, but the fact is that when our Government first took office in 1997 there was no effective child care system or policy. At that time this country lagged behind many of our partners in the European Union in our thinking and in the development of such policy. With the formulation of the first equal opportunities child care programme for the millennium, we at last had a definite Government policy on child care. However, I am always surprised that in contemporary political discourse in the State so many individuals profess to have discovered that child care was an issue when they were canvassing in the counties of Meath and Kildare.

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