Déirdre de Búrca (Green Party)

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Barry Andrews, to the House and the opportunity to make a statement on the provision of child care services.

There is little disagreement in the House that a considerable challenge faces this country in terms of developing a quality child care infrastructure, but there is a clear need to establish a workable, flexible, equitable and affordable model of child care in Ireland. There are a number of problems and difficulties facing us in this country, one of which is that Irish child care services are provided largely on an informal basis which does not meet the needs of parents. CSO statistics show that child-minding or family home-based child care is still by far the largest sub-sector in Ireland, accounting for 80% of child care places for infants, pre-school and schoolgoing children. The remaining 20% of parents access private and community child care services which can take many different forms, including sessional services, full-day services, employer-based child care, after-school care and the Early Start Programme.

Despite clear improvements to the child care system, unfortunately, the current provision does not address the demand. It would appear that the child care services have the capacity to support little more than 15% of the children aged up to three years, and we have the second lowest rate of coverage in Europe for those between the ages of three and six years, according to an OECD study of child care in Ireland of two years ago.

The second problem in terms of developing an adequate model of child care is that traditionally we have viewed child care as an adjunct to employment policies rather than as a highly complex and important issue in its own right. Much international research shows that the early years of a child's life are crucial to his or her cognitive, emotional and social development and that many of the benefits are transferred to the family and to the wider community. Child care is not just about employment or even about educating children; it is an important social support mechanism and developmental service. Research has demonstrated that the influence of the first few years of a child's life can determine whether he or she will remain in school, will access employment and-or proceed to third level education. We need to take all of these factors into consideration when considering the development of child care services.

On Saturday morning last I attended a SIPTU meeting which examined the organisation of people who work in the community child care sector, and these issues arose repeatedly. I would welcome a proposal to organise workers in this sector because part of the difficulty is that the sector, because it is largely informal, has been relatively invisible and its workers have not pushed for issues such as proper training, better standards and, obviously, pay and conditions, which also would come into the equation. It is in everybody's interest that the sector organises itself to a greater extent, and I think the Government has been trying to do this. It has been trying to put in place structures to help the child care sector organise itself in a way that will benefit the children who are in receipt of the services.

In 2000, 33 city and county child care committees were established to deliver local child care strategies and these committees received funding under the Equality Opportunities Childcare Programme. They also have strategic plans, employ staff and implement actions. Will the Minister comment on whether the effectiveness of these child care committees has been evaluated, and whether the area is regularly evaluated to learn from best practice and from those who are succeeding in making good inroads into developing good child care structures and programmes in their areas?

One of my aims today, rather than focusing on the challenges and the negatives, is to point to one programme of which I became aware recently, which is funded by the Government and which is a positive model that I hope will be replicated around the country in years to come, namely, the Fledglings Childcare project. The first of a number of sites opened in Fettercairn in Tallaght on 1 September last and the second site is due to open at Brookfield probably at the beginning of January.

I will outline the background to how this project arose. The original project, The Shanty Educational Project, was founded 21 years ago by Ms Ann Louise Gilligan and Ms Katherine Zappone. Their belief was that education was the key to eradicating poverty. The Shanty programme has provided an extensive range of second-chance education and training opportunity for thousands of women in Tallaght West.

In 1999, the Government provided a grant of €1 million to help build An Cosán and Rainbow House was established. This is the organisation's in-house early childhood education and care centre and provides high quality education and care. This enabled many parents in the locality to avail of education and training. At a later stage, an innovative social enterprise project was developed and Fledglings Childcare was then registered and created. This centre was set up to provide child care training for local women. By May 2007, it had more than 220 women on 11 different courses including FETAC level five child care, FETAC level six supervisory and management and other courses including child-minding and parenting.

This is an innovative and radical new social enterprise which can be replicated. The hope is that it will be replicated outside Tallaght west in the Dublin area and nationally in due course. Economies of scale will apply and once the front-end set-up costs have been covered, the costs of the extended roll out will be much lower. The model is based on research into local community needs and responds to the real unmet need for affordable early childhood education and care, particularly in disadvantaged areas. It is also a social franchise model that has been recognised by Social Entrepreneurs Ireland.

Under its contract with the Office of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Fledglings Childcare has committed to opening ten child care centres using this social franchise model. When operating at full capacity, the first four of these locations will provide more than 115 additional child care places and more than 20 new child care jobs.

I congratulate the Government and the Office of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs on having had the foresight to support a project like this, but also argue strongly for the replication of this type of project in the rest of the greater Dublin area and around the country.