Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

On child care, I am pleased to have given a significant amount of my tight budget to create the first system of after-school child care. Last year, Senator Ó Clochartaigh and others stated that the community employment sector would close down. Since the Department has taken over community employment schemes we have increased it, for instance, with Tús, of which Senators Mooney and Ó Domhnaill will be familiar. It has been an opportunity that has been jumped at by significant numbers of those around the country to participate in assisting their local community and getting them closer to the labour market. We have taken on significant numbers on Tús supervisory contracts from the ranks of those who were formerly unemployed. Rather than the closedown that Sinn Féin was tending to predict last year, we have expanded the number of opportunities and I made provision for an extra 10,000 places in the budget.