Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I ask that we have a debate with the Minster for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth on childcare providers. There is a whole range of things that we need to do to improve the service and how they manage. Parents are telling me about a real situation at the moment on foot of the really positive news last week that everything is reopening. We have parents across the country who have had children at home for the last two years. They are now getting calls from their employers to come back to work next week and they are trying to get childcare. The earliest a person I have been talking to can get childcare providers is August. Some parents are being told next February. There is real worry and panic for people being asked to come back to work, which the employers are more than entitled to request. I would encourage employers to be in some way understanding of the changes that parents and employees have had over the last two years.

We really need to support these childcare providers as a Government. We need to do so throughout the next years and we need a long-term plan. However, there is an immediate issue in terms of supporting childcare providers. There is no financial benefit for them taking in young babies. They make no money out of it. We need to support the childcare providers to be able to take more young babies in. I am getting calls daily from extremely worried parents who need to go back to work and can get no childcare provider. It was really good news last week but it is really changing what working parents have been doing for the last two years. We need to figure out a way of managing that over the coming months.