Mary Fitzpatrick (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for coming to the Seanad to discuss childcare and for all the work on childcare he has done since taking office. I have had to go to him about a number of issues and he has always been very responsive. I believe he places a very high value on childcare, including in the early years. This can be seen in the changes and improvements being brought about by this Government. In particular, I welcome the changes to the national childcare scheme, particularly how they apply to those who are socially and economically disadvantaged - the children who need support the most. I thank him for taking the time to engage with the community childcare service providers from the north and south inner city of Dublin. They really valued his time. He listened to them and took the issues on board and he and his Department worked with them. I am not suggesting that everything is done but I acknowledge that and thank the Minister for it.

The increase in the ECCE hours, the increase in maternity and paternity leave, the increase in core funding and the commitment to get to €1 billion per annum by 2028 are really welcome. They signal that this Government recognises that there is a crisis arising out of how we provided childcare in the past and is seriously committed to improving that. We all recognise that childcare is important, not just for children and their parents but also for childcare workers and our economy generally. This debate should also be framed in the context of what is the debate of the moment, namely the cost-of-living crisis about which everybody is talking and with which everybody is crippled.

There are three elements - access, affordability and value, and sustainability. By access, I mean being able to access childcare. Every childcare service provider in Dublin Central has a waiting list. Every parent with a child who is considering going back to paid employment outside the home has to really battle with and take on the enormous challenge of securing a childcare place. You are at a really vulnerable point when you have just had a child, particularly if it is your first child. You are learning on the job and you have this push-pull. On the one hand, you want to go back to paid employment but on the other, you have this enormous life-changing responsibility. When you are going to trust strangers to mind your child, it is a mind melt and a heart melt for parents. On top of that, there are very few places so your choice is limited. You cannot be selective, choosy or critical. It is a real crisis for new parents. The north-east inner city, which is only a little pocket east of O'Connell Street reaching as far as Seville Place, has about seven childcare providers. These are community childcare providers - not the full gamut. They can provide about 450 places and have a waiting list of more than 350. There are almost as many children on the waiting list as there are in the childcare services so it is a massive crisis. I cannot overstate this.

I know the Minister is aware of this because he is engaged with this issue but we must keep in mind that within that same area, there are more than 11 facilities providing services for and welcoming Ukrainian refugees. There are about 1,000 Ukrainian refugees in the north-east inner city alone where there are already as many children on a waiting list as there are in childcare services, where we are already providing 60% or 70% of all the emergency homeless accommodation and where there is less than 10% home ownership. We know that two thirds of the Ukrainians coming here are women and children. There are roughly 1,000 of them in the north-east inner city, an area that is already bursting at the seams. I know the Minister is engaged in this but I provide this example because it is a real-life example. I know people talk about their towns and villages. This is my town and village. This is my community. We want to welcome people. We want the Ukrainians who come here to have a positive experience but when we cannot get childcare places for our own children, it sends the wrong message.

The cost of childcare is roughly €20,000 per year. You must earn in excess of that. That is €20,000 after you have paid your taxes, so you are talking about €30,000. It is a second mortgage. In the north inner city and Dublin Central, people are paying the most in terms of rents and property prices. I know the Minister and the Government get it, but we must go further, particularly in terms of affordability and the cost-of-living crisis. I urge the Minister to urge his colleagues in government to introduce a tax rebate for parents. They need it. They need a tax rebate. The Government needs to make it affordable in addition to continuing with core funding. We need both. We are spending less than 0.5% of our GDP on childcare. We all value it and say it is necessary. We all know the dividend it pays in the future is enormous. As a country, we need to make that firm commitment to it. I urge the Minister to urge his colleagues in government to do that.