Catherine Ardagh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I raise the lacuna in the national childcare scheme. This issue may have been raised before but thousands of children, especially in the inner city of Dublin, are going to lose out on after-school places because of the October 2019 changes. Many childcare providers are still staying afloat because of the current wage subsidy schemes, which will end in September. Those schemes have given childcare providers some respite and space to figure out what to do.

We know the part of the national childcare scheme that affects the Robert Emmet Community Development Project is the income assessment scheme whereby children of parents who are not working will only be entitled to 20 hours of childcare per week. We may need to review the scheme in light of the fact that these are the most disadvantaged children in the country. For their primary education, they have the advantage of attending schools with Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools, DEIS, status. We might need also to look at DEIS after-school facilities so that these children are not left with nowhere to go. The Robert Emmet group provides a huge service. It is after school and includes a warm meal and help with homework. To cut the service off would be an absolute indictment on us. I would appreciate it if the Cathaoirleach and the Acting Leader would raise this matter with the Minister.

I concur with my colleagues, Senators Seery Kearney and McGreehan, on the ESRI report into those working with disabilities. We had the fourth lowest rate of employment for people with disabilities of working age in 2018. A contributing factor was obviously the lack of supports for people going from second level education, where we are quite good, to third level education, where we are failing miserably. Nearly 11% of us have some sort of disability so it is a considerable amount of the population. We need to do a lot more to support our loved ones, family members and friends with a disability.