Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am proud of this budget and am delighted that it will tackle the cost of living for families, with a record €716 million investment in childcare as well as the extension of a range of housing, health, education and welfare supports.

Addressing the cost of childcare has been a top priority for Fine Gael. The investment total of €716 million in early years services includes a new €69 million funding stream for childcare providers from next September that will ensure the sustainability of those services and attract others into the childcare sector. That is a provision of €200 million in a full year. These moneys are planned to support the outcome of the joint labour committee under my party colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy English, who is working in conjunction with the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, and establish minimum rates of pay and conditions for workers in the childcare sector. These much-needed supports will help providers and their staff. Some 4,700 employees across the country will benefit. A condition placed on this investment is the cap on childcare fees, which will be of great help to parents.

We will see the continuation of the EWSS until April 2022. There will also be a one-off bridging scheme to span the period between April and September when the new scheme will kick off, costing €5.5 million per month, to ensure that there is no cliff edge for childcare providers. The national childcare strategy, NCS, universal subsidy is being extended to all under-15s from next September, bringing an additional 40,000 children into its provision. I am delighted that the practice of deducting the hours spent in preschool and school from the entitlement to NCS subsidised hours will be stopped, thereby bringing 5,000 children from low-income families into the net. This will address an anomaly that caused the risk of exclusion for children from disadvantaged communities, as was particularly highlighted in my home constituency of Dublin South-Central.

The budget sees us build on the previous Fine Gael Government's initiative and continues the implementation of the universal early childhood care and education, ECCE, programme, which provides for more than 100,000 children for the two years before they begin primary school.We see the continuation of AIM - access inclusion model - workers to support children in the ECCE programme who have special education needs.

Fine Gael is focused on assisting families with financial pressures through a range of measures targeted specifically at parents and children. Along with childcare, housing remains an issue of concern for families with many looking to own their own home and provide security for their children. I am thrilled that the help-to-buy scheme, which has already helped over 28,300 people previously locked out of the property market to own their first home, will be extended for another year.

A range of supports from the Department of Social Protection under the Minister, Deputy Humphreys, will also help families. Parents will feel the benefit of budget 2022 and see an uplift as children return to school, with a €10 increase in the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance by June of next year. The duration of parent’s benefit, introduced under a Fine Gael-led Government in 2019, will increase. Parents will receive an extra two weeks off as leave rises to seven weeks from July 2022. The income threshold for the working family payment will also be increased by €10 for all families. Children aged six and seven will now also benefit from free GP care, with the intention of extending this to all children up to the age of 12. The financial burden of hospital charges for children under 18 will also be reduced. An additional 980 special education teachers will be hired, alongside an unprecedented 1,165 new special needs assistants, bringing the total number of SNAs in Ireland to a record 19,169. This will bring investment in special education to the highest level in history.

This is a budget for parents and children. It will help families with the high cost of living and, critically, it will tackle rising childcare costs which will come as a great relief to many families across the country.