Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I hope we all agree on that. In saying that, I mean no disrespect to the Minister. As I have said, I believe he has made a good start but the problem is that the workers are stuck now. They are still stuck on rates of pay that are far too low. I am not sure that the Minister has the capacity under the current model to fix that. Therefore, I ask him to have the courage to embrace the call for the public provision of childcare and work out a roadmap for how to get that done. If we do not have that roadmap, we will not get where we want and we will be having this conversation again in 12 or 24 months. I hope there will be a consensus on this issue.

Again, I commend Senator Currie for her motion. Although I have to leave, I will note the Minister’s response later. I look forward to it.