Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It can be reversed and Age Action has costed that at €60 million. Our costing in our own pre-budget submission was €70 million.

Budgets are about choices. Unfortunately, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil chose to go for tax cuts that benefit the well-off much more than ordinary workers and left these women high and dry. The case was made much more ably by a caller to the Sean O'Rourke radio programme yesterday than I can make it, but we can all agree that this cut was wrong. If the Minister for Finance can agree that it is wrong, then let us do something about it. I call for a debate on the issue and for those in Fine Gael to recognise that it was wrong and that it is eminently doable to reverse it in this budget. It would cost €60 million to €70 million.

I wish to raise a failure in the budget relating to child care. The 7% increase to the early childhood care and education scheme, ECCE, is welcome but, unfortunately, it is unlikely to result in better wages. The real problem in the sector is that people are voting with their feet. Qualified educators, managers and providers leave the sector each week. Sinn Féin has made the case, along with SIPTU and IMPACT, for a sectoral employment order for the child care sector. In our pre-budget submission, we costed it at €40.58 million, which would have given child care workers a €1 an hour rise. A lack of political will is at fault here. Everyone here knows that child care workers are underpaid. Everyone has said so but, yet again, the Government has failed to do anything about it. The solution, a sectoral employment order, is available. Even the Minister, Deputy Katherine Zappone, said it would be welcome, but it will not happen without the funding. I call for a debate on the issue and for the Leader, as a trade unionist, to support my call for a sectoral employment order for the child care sector.