Déirdre de Búrca (Green Party)

I thank the Minister of State for his presentation and his clarification on some of the issues surrounding this important debate on State subvention for the community child care scheme. The availability of quality child care services is very important for working parents and parents who want to access education and training. It is especially important where people from disadvantaged areas are concerned because the only way we will assist people in helping to break the cycle of poverty and disadvantage is to make child care available to enable them to go back into education and training which will allow them to take up employment opportunities subsequently.

Private child care in this country is very expensive and child care costs are among the highest in Europe. Community child care services cater for low income families and it is important we have a clear vision of how we want community child care to develop. The equal opportunities childcare programme 2001-06 was successful in funding and supporting community child care centres. The funding was allocated on the basis of staffing grants which allowed these not-for-profit community groups to set up local crèches. There was a desirable social mix of children in those centres, some of whom were from disadvantaged and low income families and others who availed of the community service that might not have been in their locality otherwise.

The proposed change in the subvention scheme has come about as a result of the value for money review that was carried out. The thrust behind that review was to figure out whether children from disadvantaged families were getting the best possible support from the State. The idea was to try to ensure that there is more effective targeting of that funding at the children from disadvantaged families. As we make the transition from one scheme to another, however, there will be problems and unintended impacts. The Minister of State should look at how these might be alleviated in the early years. The difficulty of moving from funding based on staffing grants to funding tied to the individual child may leave some crèches in a position where they may have to put staff on protective notice. They may also consider the possibility of losing children if they do not feel they have enough families availing of social welfare to use the services of their crèches.

There may be a possibility of some kind of general grant to these crèches being continued for a period as well as the more individualised, child-centred payments proposed. Perhaps some consultation between these service providers and the Department might be useful. I know the Minister of State has been looking for feedback from them on this issue. It would be helpful to hear constructive proposals from the sector about how they feel the transition problems might be overcome.

Some Senators have proposed that there be recognition of a category of low income parents that have not been mentioned to date. The scheme mentions parents on social welfare and the family income supplement, but we may need to look at categories such as parents on a medical card or others who have a general practitioner visit card entitlement. The Minister of State is well-disposed to this but it would be unfortunate if the new system excluded low income families that happened to fall outside the current parameters. Members are aware of the difficulties associated with categorising funding no matter how inclusive one attempts to be.