Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise an issue that I bring up quite a bit, namely, childcare. I wish to raise it again because almost every week it is getting worse for childcare on three levels. Parents are at their wits' end because they cannot get childcare for their kids. Parents who have been working from home for the past two years but who are now going back into the workplace and need to get childcare are being told they cannot get it until August at the earliest. Some are being told it will not be available until next February. They are at their wits' end and are panicking. There is also the issue of people who work in childcare deciding to leave it because the money is just not worth it. They cannot be paid enough. These are people who went to college for four years and want to be in childcare and work with young kids and babies but, for financial reasons, they are deciding they have to leave. There is also the fact that management are now at their wits' end because they cannot find replacements for people who are leaving, so the management themselves are deciding to leave.

I acknowledge that the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy O'Gorman, is doing a phenomenal amount of work in his Department. He is a fantastic Minister and has made changes. Supports put in place by this Government in the past two years have been recognised and appreciated by the industry. They are clearly not enough, however. Plans that are to be brought forward by next September will dramatically change the childcare sector. That is really important but there are many businesses that will not survive until then. I have spoken to numerous childcare providers and they really do not think they will make it to September. We need emergency funding for the sector to keep them going. It just does not make sense that people cannot get their children in because there are not enough spaces, while people are leaving the industry because they cannot get paid. Until we recognise childcare providers as educators and pay them the correct wage as such, this issue will not be solved. Every week I see the work done in the Play and Learn crèche in Clonmel, which my child attends. These people are educators. I see my child develop and grow on the back of what they do. They need to be paid a fair wage and management need to be supported to be able to pay them that wage to retain the employment in these businesses.