Catherine Ardagh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will raise the issue of early-school education and after-school education. I raised the issue last week in the context of the national childcare scheme and how it is disadvantaging children from lower socio-economic areas of the city and country. I support those providers, and parents, who were outside Leinster House yesterday in their campaign to get clarity. They hope the employment wage subsidy scheme continue because at the moment it is masking major deficits in the national childcare scheme. Ultimately, the Seanad should be ambitious. I would love to see a motion tabled in this House on a national childcare scheme. Childcare should be brought within the ambit of the Department of Education and all children from the age of two should have free early preschool childcare within a more streamlined and regulated environment, such as the Department of Education. We should lead on it in the Seanad and campaign for it together because when we work together our voices are much stronger than individual ones.

I also raise the issue of the assisted capacity legislation, which was enacted in 2015. At present, the Office of Wards of Court is working from legislation dating from the 1900s, the Lunacy (Ireland) Act 1901. Families are struggling. Anyone with diminished capacity is affected by this legislation not being implemented. There are families looking to place parents in nursing homes and children with severe disabilities who cannot manage their financial affairs. There is a major struggle going on within families throughout the country. I am sure many of us have been contacted by families asking for help with the fair deal scheme, or whether they are entitled to this or they need to do that. This legislation would make it so much easier for them.We need to make sure that this legislation is enacted sooner rather than later and is not put on the long finger again because we have been promised it for a long time.