Lorraine Clifford Lee (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I also join Senator Bacik in raising the issue of child care, particularly because it is the International Day of the Girl Child. Girls grow up to be mothers and, in the main, it is mothers who are impacted by our pitiful response to the costs and provision of child care in this country. We support the Minister, Deputy Katherine Zappone's increase in funding for families to meet their child care costs, but we have a number of concerns with the design of the scheme.

The proposed scheme is essentially two schemes, a high level subsidy of €8,000 per annum for low income families earning below €47,000 and a much lower universal child care subsidy up to €900 per annum for households earning more than €47,000. The major problem I can see immediately is that this scheme only begins in September 2017, which means essentially we have a full year to wait before families and particularly mothers are catered for by this Government.

There are also a number of other issues that I can foresee. It is possible the scheme may discriminate against couples who opt for joint assessment of income. The Minister is proposing a scheme that requires households to input their PPS number into a system which tells them whether they are eligible. If an individual is earning under €47,000, he or she may become eligible, and likewise a couple earning under that amount who are jointly assessed. If, however, one person in a couple is earning under €47,00 and the other is earning more than that but they are not jointly assessed, he or she may become eligible. It is something we need to look out for in this area. This is not a progressive proposal. If a couple is earning more than €47,000, for example, €48,000 or €49,000, they become eligible only for the subsidy of €900 per annum. That is terribly unfair because that is the same subsidy paid to a family earning a combined income of €200,000. That needs to be considered.

Capacity is a significant issue. There are insufficient child care place, with long waiting lists for families seeking child care. This will put extra pressure on the system. I would like the Minister to address this in some way. I ask the Leader to call on the Minister to bring forward the start date of the proposed scheme.Families cannot wait until September 2017. I was disappointed not to see the extension of paid paternity leave and an element of maternity and paternity leave sharing between couples. I will leave it at that for today.