Frances Fitzgerald (Fine Gael)

It is difficult to know where to begin. Many community groups are in panic about this measure. This has been introduced in a clumsy way and without adequate consultation with the sector. Had there been adequate consultation, meetings would not be taking place throughout the country, every partnership in the country would not be calling meetings of their providers to try to tell the Minister about the severe distress this is causing to community groups. I will give several examples of the concerns local community play groups have. I will give the Minister of State a document detailing these concerns.

I will begin by reading an e-mail a woman recently sent me:

Today the Government made the decision for me that I shall only have one child. Up to now I had been trying to hold my ground against the grinding increases in all of life's necessities, but finally my husband and I must admit defeat. The Government has introduced the community child care subvention scheme. This will affect the crèche our daughter attends. Under the new scheme the level of grant aid to each facility will be based on the number of disadvantaged parents, which makes sense. However, parents will only receive assistance if they are in receipt of a social welfare payment. So once again couples like ourselves fall into the ever-widening and, frankly, terrifying gap. We both work — this is a necessity — therefore we will not be eligible for a reduction. Give up work, you say. Although the Government appears to be pushing me this way, we cannot afford to live on one salary. Whatever remains after child care is needed to pay bills. Up to now I thought I could muddle along, but now things have changed. This morning it seems the Government has won. This in one final increase we cannot overcome.

That is the feeling from one parent who is trying to access child care and who is extremely concerned based on what her local community child care group has told her about the implications of the scheme. Many people are concerned

The Minister of State's speech is detailed and I am trying to take everything in. In this extraordinary statement he almost admits what that woman said:

In the absence of sufficient data to enable my office to quantify and cost accurately a more generous scheme under the new, more transparent arrangements, it was decided to identify the most disadvantaged categories of parents at the outset. We could not disregard those parents and start at higher income levels, but we could not commit to a scheme that goes beyond the most disadvantaged categories until we were in a position to quantify and cost the outcome accurately.

Why cannot the Department do that?