Rebecca Moynihan (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I will follow on the theme raised by the Senator. Last week, providers closed their crèches for the day and took part in a campaign outside the gates of Leinster House. The previous week, however, the NWCI held the Purple for Public campaign. A significant amount of work has been done on this issue by the NWCI and SIPTU’s Big Start campaign. The childcare crisis is not new. It has been going on for many years. We know thousands of places throughout Dublin are closing down. Why is that the case? It is because childcare has been left up to the ebb and flow of the free and private market. My local crèche in my constituency of Dublin South-Central closed last year. A new planning application has been lodged for the site but it does not include the provision of a crèche. Instead, it includes the provision of a private gym. The private childcare system has failed. Parents are exhausted from months of stressing about securing affordable childcare. Children are being ferried out of their communities to scarce services. Staff are worried about whether their facilities can continue to run and are in low-pay, precarious jobs. We need a new model that guarantees affordable, local and secure childcare for every stakeholder. That cannot be delivered through the private system that is currently being operated. It must be a public system, akin to how primary schools are operated. Staff should be on public employment contracts with fair wages, children should be guaranteed a place and parents should not be price gouged. We should not be relying on private developers to provide those facilities, some of which are completely inadequate. Instead, just as the Department of Education does for schools, there should be forward planning for childcare needs and then the provision of those facilities.The only way we can guarantee secure, affordable and accessible childcare is by letting the State intervene and it being the leader in it, funding, managing and creating more childcare options in our community. If the Government fails to step up on this, it is failing parents, children and workers in the childcare sector across the country.