James Heffernan (Labour) | Oireachtas source

There is politicking going on. Certainly, it has been a dreadful decision by the Labour Party, which many of its members have recognised. Former colleagues of mine have told me of fraught Labour Parliamentary Party meetings and I just cannot fathom where the party thought it was going with this. There was a wave of goodwill after the marriage equality referendum, but then this was lashed out.

I studied in Finland, a country with a similar population size and demographics to our own. I visited Copenhagen. It would not require a massive change in the way we think through child care to implement the child care system that is operating in the Scandinavian countries. It does not take a massive leap of faith to get our act together to do that. The idea of increasing, as Senator van Turnhout said, child benefit by €5 for everyone is insane. I have always said the universal child benefit payment was wrong. The reason I left the Labour Party was over cuts to child benefit because it was a promise that was made but was not kept. This is another thing that is a promise and it is what people are missing. The Tánaiste promised that these cuts would not be implemented until the safeguard of a Scandinavian child care system was in place. That has not materialised. Instead, we see the handy option of going back to give everyone an extra fiver and all will be safe and well. That is not the case. It is ridiculous that we still have families in this country that can save up their children's allowance to go on a skiing holiday at Christmas while other families are struggling to put food on their tables and to bring children to school. It is just not right.

Connolly, 1916 and cherishing all of the children of the nation equally will be quoted back to the Labour Party ad nauseamin the run up to the commemoration. This cut does not go anyway towards treating children equally. In fairness to the Minister of State, he is a fair man and has been fair in my interactions with him. He knows about the social welfare system and about what works and what does not. This is a retrograde step and something that needs to be looked at. I hear other Government Senators saying it is a motion and will not go anywhere, but it will be symbolic if this House sends a loud and clear message that we want to see a reversal of a cut with which we do not agree and wish the Government to rethink. There have been some suggestions about how it can be thrashed out and rethought. Perhaps that is where the Government needs to go with it and where the Department needs to go; back to the drawing board to sort out child care. The €5 increase in children's allowance does not make sense. I could go on, but I am out of time.