Joe O'Toole (Independent)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House and wish him well. The first call I received this morning was from someone in his constituency involved in the child care area who is rightly very upset with this legislation. It is not a question of what is in the Minister of State's proposal, but of what is missing from it. That is where the problem lies. There is an economic strategy to attract people into the workplace. While I do not want to sound sexist about this, in general, this strategy currently refers to attracting women into the workplace for their economic contribution to the GDP and GNP of this State. That is what needs to happen but whether we like it or not, the issue of child care is very much a women's issue. The cost of it is shared but in the main, although not exclusively, the responsibility for it falls on women's shoulders. I want to make that point because much else flows from it. If men were more reliant on child care much more would have been done in the meantime.

What can be done and what is not in the Minister of State's proposal? The Minister of State is technically right in stating it is not means tested but based on other figures including the family income supplement. The real issue, however, is that people just above the threshold will feel they are going to be hit once more. I accept the point the Minister of State is making but what can he do about that?