Aisling Dolan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome this motion on childcare from Senators Sherlock and Wall. I welcome the Minister of State who is here on behalf of the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman. What has been raised here is important. The people in the Gallery work and are managers in the early years sector. I am based in a more rural area. Senator Wall referred to this and the challenges that we can face. Senator Sherlock mentioned city centre areas, such as the north part of the city of Dublin. There is a huge population and high demand for these services.

I have looked at the numbers over the past year for the national childcare scheme and the number of services that have signed up for core funding. I know of services that are still outside it but, from what I understand, more than 90% of services have signed up to core funding but there is still a significant challenge with the costs for independent childcare services. We are fully aware that they have been incredible over the past year. From a Government perspective, the temporary business energy support scheme is available. It has to be available for childcare providers to apply for because of the extreme costs they face. With core funding comes responsibility. As a Government and society, this is about working with everyone. Our children come first. We need to provide a level of care that is available to parents from all backgrounds, particularly single parents. Single mums and dads are the most vulnerable when it comes to being able to accommodate these costs and to poverty. The number one category in terms of poverty is single parents. We have to support their children, first and foremost.

The area I am based in ranks highly on the Pobal deprivation index. This has to be used. We have talked about families from different backgrounds. The census we had last year, which we will get reports about next year, will indicate areas of concern across the country that we will need to focus our resources and budget on. I highlight that as something for the Minister to look at.

Senator Sherlock mentioned the pilot and access to meals and food, similar to what we see with the schools in the delivering equality of opportunity in schools, DEIS, programme. The Minister, Deputy Humphreys, was speaking here just before this session about the importance of hot school meals for children and the expansion of the scheme to DEIS. I know some DEIS schools provide free school meals. Up to 500 schools currently provide free hot school meals. I would like to see an update on this pilot that has been rolled out. Over €150,000 has been allocated to that this year. I would like to see how that would work with information from the census and the Pobal deprivation index.

In rural areas, there is a challenge with maintaining fees to ensure that parents are able to access these services. In my area, we have Ballinasloe College of Further Education. As spokesperson on education, I am interested in the level and breadth of courses that it is able to offer. In my town, we offer three different types of course, covering childcare, pre-nursing, healthcare, horticulture and a number of other courses that the institution is expanding into. I attended a graduate ceremony last week in Ballinasloe College of Further Education, which is run by the education and training boards, ETBs. Young men and women are doing courses relating to childcare and the number is increasing.

People in some of these areas are able to do courses leading to level 4 and 5 qualifications in their ETB facilities and people can do part-time courses in the mornings or evenings. Level 6 courses may only be offered online, however. While that may work as well in some situations, I would love to see how we could offer those courses, up to level 6, within local towns across the country. Having a graduate within the childcare services is part of something that we want to see rolled out. Many have done level 5 courses, have come into the programme, and are able to work. It gave me such heart to meet young people doing those courses, who are now graduates working in childcare services in the town of Ballinasloe. I would not underestimate the number of jobs that are available. We want to see independent childcare services providers in our towns. I acknowledge there is a significant need in our cities but we are fortunate to have those courses. The city might have different pressures. If the Minister of State could commit to more courses being available in towns across the country, it would increase the bandwidth. Senator Sherlock raised points about the shortage of childcare places. I would be interested in seeing how ETB facilities in city centre areas could deliver that.

I agree with Senator Sherlock about points of disadvantage. I would like to see that being aligned with the Pobal deprivation index that comes out of the census, with particular regard to children with disabilities. The Minister of State will be familiar with how we can support children's disability network teams, which are a new initiative, to be more effective. I thank the Senators for bringing this to us. I have seen an improvement over the past year. The level of funding from the Government has been acknowledged. This has been a key thing that Fine Gael has driven and over the last year to two years, it has become one of our key priorities as a party in government.