Neale Richmond (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to join colleagues in welcoming the Minister, Deputy Katherine Zappone. This is the first time I have met her. It is a pleasure to do so and I commend her very sincerely for the work she has done in recent weeks, including on the budget.

I will declare my interest. My wife is a Montessori teacher and we are in the process of trying to open a Montessori school in south County Dublin, but I assure the House this will have no bearing on what I say. I wish to relay a few issues which have been raised with me since the announcement of the budget, ask one or two questions about the new scheme and discuss one or two issues which are not directly related but which come within the wider brief of the Department of Children and Youth Affairs.

When speaking about child care in general, particularly preschool education, young parents in my area consider various issues, of which cost is the biggest because if they cannot afford the child care service they want, they start to get angry and ask understandable questions. Another issue is choice. People want their child to go to a Montessori setting in the morning and attend a different after-school facility. Therefore, they want choice and the services provided in the area to be balanced for all children, from birth to the age of 15 years.

I have a query about the rules for what counts as net income.Senator Clifford-Lee brought this up this as well. Many people are wondering whether they will be covered. Will the Minister, in her response or maybe at a later date, set out what is covered in term of net income and whether there are areas where there might be an element of flexibility, given that so many young parents are still feeling many of the after-effects of the years of austerity and, most importantly, the crash?

I think it was Senator Ruane who discussed at length after-school care, which is vitally important. Much of the attention in previous years was not on after-school care. A number of parents have raised with me over the past few months the fact they are committed to after-school care, they have the resources and they have the support necessary from the State but they do not have the actual facility. They say there is a dearth of facilities, especially in south County Dublin, the area with which I am most familiar. Montessori schools or crèches, which provide services in the morning, see obstacles laid out before them by the child care committee in adapting their facilities to after-school care facilities. Can any measures be taken to open up property for this purpose? Could more partnerships with other institutions, be they private or public, be considered to develop after-school facilities and the necessary sessions for parents, as their children go beyond their early years into their later years, up to the age of 15?

I welcome all the measures announced in the budget last week and wish the Minister every best with them. They are greatly important. I first started knocking on doors for Fine Gael in 2004. Ever since then and in every election campaign I have canvassed or run in as a candidate, child care and its cost have been huge issues. The vast majority of parents see the cost of child care as a second mortgage. It is tough. I very much welcome the area we are moving into and the initiatives announced last week, especially when many continental comparisons are considered. The initiatives are very progressive and long overdue. As I said, I started canvassing in 2004 so, in my mind, they are at least 12 years overdue. I, therefore, commend the Minister on everything that has gone into the budget.

The second matter to which I refer has absolutely nothing to do with the recent announcements but it comes under the Minister's remit. I have raised the matter on the Order of Business previously, in different places and in different debates, even just last week. I refer to Erasmus+ and the drawdown in Ireland in respect of the scheme. In 2015, 150 out of 243 Irish applications, or just over 60%, were successful. That is a pretty good figure, but 243 applications in the first place is disappointingly low. Léargas, the agency that runs Erasmus+, and the HEA, which partners with it, ran 28 clinics for organisations looking to apply for Erasmus+ in 2015. This shows that when applications are completed, they are put through. However, in a previous life, I spent far too many hours compiling and filling out Erasmus+ application forms. I think the record was 111 pages; the shortest form I ever completed was 57 pages long. I ask the Minister, therefore, if at a European Council level, she will put the case to the Commission that we are simply not making the most of great programmes, such as Erasmus+. The application and reporting process needs to be simplified greatly. The whole system could be improved. I ask the Department to make efforts to improve this, bearing in mind that many times when Irish organisations and bodies were successful in their applications, it was through partnering with organisations in the UK. We need to fill that gap post-Brexit and I ask the Minister to take my comments to the Council and the Commission and to look for greater simplicity.