Mary White (Fianna Fail)

In my document, A New Approach to Childcare, recommendation No. 5 states that the Government should provide greater financial supports for parents to break the cycle of poverty and unemployment. As spokesperson on children on the Government side of the House, I have studied this matter in detail so I believe my remarks will be balanced and informed.

The main motivation for the new scheme is to make child care funding transparent, measurable and accountable. It will allow the Government to help disadvantaged parents in a way that benefits them directly. It will also help by being focused on non-disadvantaged areas where there are very disadvantaged parents. How will this be done? Over the next two years there will be an increase of 16% in the money available to help parents who are disadvantaged. That represents a budget of €153 million. The new scheme aims to help those who are most disadvantaged.

The Department of Finance requested a value for money review of the staffing grant scheme. There is nothing wrong with that. This involves taxpayers' money and the Department of Finance, on behalf of the public, has a responsibility to ensure money spent on the child care sector is spent with integrity and fairly. The recommendations from that review gave rise to the new child care subvention scheme. I do not claim the scheme is perfect but am simply explaining the idea or plan behind it.

The Minister of State could look at the example of the Athboy community child care centre, which opened in 2004. It is a state-of-the-art facility, a beautiful building that blends with the area's environment. Athboy is a bustling town in the commuter belt. Many people have moved from Dublin to live in Athboy. Senator Fitzgerald mentioned an important point which I believe has not been given adequate attention by the Department. The Athboy child care committee was established by a group of volunteers in 2000. The volunteer community group engaged an architect, secured the site from Meath County Council, and applied for planning permission and a capital grant. It succeeded in securing €2.25 million, which covered 100% of the cost of the building. This was a group of volunteers, altruistic people who wished to meet the needs of their community. They gave their free time, were unpaid and put a considerable effort into delivering the beautiful building in Athboy. I recommend that everybody who has an interest in children and child care pay a visit to the centre.

This community child care centre operates from 7.30 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday to Friday, and is open for 51 weeks of the year. It provides full-time day care, part-time day care, breakfast club, after school club and all the food the children require. It costs €170 per week.

There is huge misunderstanding about the new scheme among the public. People's nerves appear to be rattled. Today, I urged one lady who runs a crèche to calm down, continue her work in the crèche and leave me to fight her corner with the Minister of State and his Department's officials. She is dealing with parents who are terrified that they will have to pay Dublin prices for their crèches. There are 84 children in the Athboy community child care centre. The typical parent commutes to a job in Dublin, Navan or Monaghan. Of the 84 children, the parents of 52 are in the subvention scheme. Nine of that number are in bands A and B while most of the parents are in band C but, as Senator Fitzgerald said, they are struggling.

Significant numbers of young parents are struggling to make ends meet. The lady who commented in the e-mail said she could not afford to go to the cinema or afford any luxuries. Young parents pay high mortgages or rents and are under pressure. I support the motivation of the Minister of State in gearing subvention towards assisting those who are disadvantaged. However, I wish to highlight the fact that people are nervous and terrified they will have to give up their jobs and stay at home.

Three weeks ago The Irish Times published the results of a survey on what women want. I asked my Fianna Fáil Party colleagues what they thought women wanted, but none of them came up with the answer. The response from the survey was that their top priority is financial independence. Women achieve that by working. Therefore, we cannot allow a situation develop where women will have to give up their jobs and their financial independence. The image of modern young women is that of stressed and worn out women with black rings under their eyes as a result of all their commuting and minding of children. However, the reality is that women with a job are happy, because they have a choice and their own money.

The newspaper article also referred to a survey conducted by Fionnuala Kennedy, who was on the Commission on the Status of Women in the early 1990s, for which she read more than 600 submissions. She was not surprised by the results published in The Irish Times, because her results, at the cusp of the Celtic tiger era——