Frances Fitzgerald (Fine Gael)

Why does the Department not have the data? Why does the Minister of State not know how much the scheme would cost if he were to make the changes and still include many of its beneficiaries, who come under the label of disadvantaged and who need the child care service? It seems decisions were made far from the reality of the desperate need of parents to access child care. There seems to be an assumption that these parents can go somewhere else. Only one in four applicants to the Clondalkin community child care service gets a place. There is a shortage of accessible, affordable child care. To make these changes and almost to rule out a number of the beneficiaries suggests that the Minister of State is far removed from what is happening. Is he aware that it is causing panic?

In the first line of the Minister's statement he says there are many "misunderstandings". I am glad he adds there are "genuine concerns" because it is not just about misunderstandings. How can one tell Clondalkin Partnership, which has been involved in running, supervising and developing community child care places for the last seven years, it is "misunderstanding" the scheme? It has analysed it in detail and shown how much more expensive the system will be and how many child care services will have to close. It is not making this up. These are genuine concerns. It will have detrimental effects on families and parents throughout the country.

While we welcome any increase in child care funding, extra funding is not an acceptable excuse for the adverse effects the new scheme will have on community creches. It will impose intolerable financial pressures on may parents by increasing the expense of child care. Parents in employment but not receiving social welfare will be penalised under the scheme. They will be excluded from benefiting from current child care subventions. I speak of parents on modest incomes who do not qualify for family income support. They will face increased child care costs if the Minister of State proceeds with this scheme without changing it or adding a new element for this group of parents.

I am not sure if the Minister of State said the Department will design a new scheme once it has all the data, which it should have had from the beginning. It looks like he said that. I hope he will extend the eligibility criteria as a result of the reaction. This scheme could force some parents out of employment as they will not be able to afford to pay for their children to be cared for while they work. The Minister's scheme will act as a disincentive to seek and remain in employment. Under the new scheme the prospects of parents working in the home returning to the work force or obtaining essential training and education will also be undermined.

Many community playgroups providing not-for-profit child care services have a legitimate concern that as a consequence of the new arrangements it will become financially impossible to continue to provide services. I have been informed that in my constituency of Dublin Mid-West, 400 child care places and 40 jobs are under threat should the Minister proceed with these changes. Such crèches cannot recruit permanent staff as they do not know whether they will be able to pay future salaries. This proposed scheme takes predictability and stability from community crèches. It strips the base out of the community child care system and operates on the belief that community schemes are cheaper to run than reality dictates. I am concerned that the scheme will militate against the creation of new community crèches, and at a time when only one in four applicants to such crèches receives a place this will be problematic. We need more of these schemes.

The Minister of State knows many of these schemes have been hard developed by people. Many of the women involved spent years working as volunteers trying to establish community crèches. Many have been there only seven or eight years. The Minister of State should not have undermined and frightened them in this way. He should have offered further support and if changes were needed, he should have engaged in consultation in a way that would have brought the sector with him.

I would like to draw the attention of the Minister of State to the effect his proposed changes will have on the funding of a number of community crèches in Clondalkin. The Cosy Kids after school child care facility will see a reduction of €53,664 in funding while St. Ronan's playgroup and Lime Tree Community Childcare Centre will face income reductions of €60,216 and €40,560, respectively. These figures have been supplied to me; they have not been made up. The sector fears that these are the amounts of money that will be lost and, as a result, child care places and access to child care will be more limited. Community child care has been a success story. Why should the facilities face such reductions?

Over recent weeks I have consulted a number of interest groups and organisations and, as a result, I wish to put a number of questions to the Minister of State. How much more will people in receipt of social welfare and family income supplement have to pay each week for child care as a result of the reduction in funding to community child care facilities? Why is the Minister of State removing the child care staffing grant when the value for money audit of the equal opportunities child care programme advocates its retention and on a multi-annual basis? If an audit is carried out of how a scheme is working and it makes recommendations about the staffing grant, why is the Minister of State not going along with that but proposing something different? Research indicates that more than 30% of community child care facilities will close in 2008 because of the shortfall created by this. Does the Minister of State know how many facilities built by Government and EU funding in the past two years may have to close or not open as a result of the subvention scheme? When will all existing crèches be informed of their staffing grant allocations for the six-month transition phase?

In addition, the Minister of State should respond to the concerns expressed by One Family, the support service for one-parent families in Ireland. The policy manager for this organisation, Candy Murphy, said yesterday that the child care subvention scheme contradicts the Government's proposed changes to the social welfare code which focus on getting people back to education and employment. The subvention scheme will create the opposite situation where parents on social welfare will be less likely to move into work for fear of losing income and being left with unmanageable child care costs. She went on to say that the scheme will increase the challenges for lone parents trying to move away from social welfare and to access meaningful and sustainable employment. Research shows that one-parent families face significant difficulties in making the transition from social welfare to work, including rising child care costs. Government plans to assist parents in overcoming these difficulties are wholly undermined by the proposed scheme. It must be re-examined.

The Minister of State must go back to the drawing board on this issue. He must engage in much more widespread and thorough consultation with the sector so its fears can be allayed. Whatever changes are introduced, they must be introduced in a way that ensures the community crèches survive and that there will be more, not fewer, child care places. I read for the Minister of State the e-mail I received from a mother who is very concerned about this. There are serious genuine concerns among the public about this issue. Detailed consultations with the Minister of State and his Department will be required to allay them. I urge the Minister of State to reconsider the scheme seriously to ensure the people who enjoy the advantage of child care under it will continue to enjoy it and that even more places are created by the establishment of more community child care crèches.

Access to child care is still a major issue in this country. It is still very expensive and consumes a huge proportion of parents' income relative to the situation in other European countries. I appreciate the Minister of State's attendance in the House today and thank him for his detailed speech. However, what I have outlined today reflects the real concerns that exist among the community and the parents using the very successful community child care scheme.