Marie Sherlock (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I second the amendment to the Order of Business proposed by my colleague, Senator Mark Wall. In 2020, the new national childcare scheme was launched and for working parents it represented great progress in establishing the principle of universal subvention for childcare. The subvention was small but it was progress nonetheless. A significant number of early years services located in some of the most disadvantaged parts of the city, and throughout the country, that work with children coming from these challenging backgrounds, now face the prospect of having to turn away some of these children and not cater for children who need these services the most. The reason is the new national childcare scheme fails to support adequately the children of parents who do not work and children whose parents do not work but are seeking work at this point in time. Many will say the whole point of a childcare scheme is to support families who work but this ignores the reality of the experience of the most disadvantaged families in the State.

The new national childcare scheme threatens to undermine years of incredible work by many services, particularly in the area I am most familiar with, which is Dublin's north inner city, and in other parts of the country. They provide services that are vital to the development and care of these children. As one service memorably informed me, it was established in the early 1920s to support the poorest children in the city. It survived the onslaught of the Black and Tans but may not survive the new national childcare scheme. This is how bad it is for services now facing the prospect of having to close, particularly after-school services. I call for the Minister with responsibility for children to come to the House to account for the design of the new national childcare scheme, undertake a review of the scheme and do what was done in the past, which is to put in place specific provisions for these services that look after the most disadvantaged children and families in the country.