Lisa Chambers (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I agree with the Order of Business. The first issue I wish to raise, and which I have raised previously, is the ongoing cost of childcare, the difficulty in accessing places and reliable childcare services. I request that at the earliest opportunity the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy O'Gorman, come before the House to engage with Senators on the matter. Everyone is aware that new core funding has been announced.This is initially to stabilise the sector and ensure we pay people properly and that early years educators get a fair and reasonable wage for the very high level of qualifications and skills they have. We also want to ensure we can reduce costs for parents, and in order to do both we must invest significantly in childcare in this country. We must get away from the culture we have had for many years that this is just about minding children; it is not. It is about providing education in those formative years, between birth and five years, before the children go to primary school. It is really important we invest in our children so we can offset the damaging effects that can be seen in early years and prevent problems down the line. In the end this will save the country so much more.

There are challenges with the core funding scheme as announced but they can be worked through. The feedback I have received to date has been quite positive in that providers are really happy to see there is a commitment to core funding. It requires tweaking, however, and I would appreciate a chance to discuss it with the Minister. In particular, we are going to try to use the core funding as a mechanism through which we will curtail increases in costs of fees for parents. I am interested in hearing how that will work in practice, with the State trying to control the private sector, and how the Minister believes that will work in the long term. It is important to get this right. The kind of childcare provision I see as being the gold standard in the country would be a public system provided by the State. It would probably take a decade to deliver that but if we do not start now we will never deliver it.

A second issue I raise is the funding of large marine projects across our coastal areas. It is easy enough to secure funding, for example, for a feasibility study for a marina project but it is almost impossible to get the millions of euro required to put those projects in place. Very often it falls back on the local authority because there is no core funding stream within the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine to fund bigger projects. It is a deficit in the Department. In the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, for example, there is core funding for urban regeneration for large-scale projects in towns across the country. Something similar is required in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine to fund large marine projects. We have a policy now in the country of trying to invest and grow our marine sector but we have not backed that up with funding to action the policy. We could do with a debate on marine projects with the Minister with responsibility for the marine.

I am almost out of time but we must have a discussion in the Chamber on the review that has been announced by Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, of all road projects planned for the next number of years in light of inflation, particularly the increased cost of building materials and labour. I understand TII is reviewing projects to see what it can deliver within its budget. That is a cause for concern for the entire country and we would like to hear what projects might be dropped from the list because of rising costs. I would welcome a debate with the appropriate Minister on that particular review.