Evanne Ní Chuilinn (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for being here. As everybody has said, we are all on the same page, we want improvements and the plans sounds fantastic. If the Minister can provide childcare for €200 per child in the lifetime of the Government, we will all be backing it, that is for sure.

I am going to cut out some of the stuff I was going to say because I am conscious we do not need repetition. I refer to staffing issues in some of these settings. As colleagues have said, there are problems with the core funding model but it is serving a certain need. However, some of the childcare providers are really struggling to hold on to staff. We cannot expect people to go through a four-year degree and then come into a job where they earn one of the lowest wages in the country while doing what I think everyone would agree is one of the most important jobs. Women who have been working in childcare for ten or 15 years are having to stop work if they have their own child because, after their maternity leave, they cannot afford to put their children into childcare because it is so expensive for many people. This job is mostly done by women, though I do have a three-year-old boy being minded at the moment by a lovely man from Spain.When these women leave the sector, they rarely come back. They tend not to come back. A childcare provider or employer will see graduates and know full well they will only have a certain amount of years with them. We also, of course, have the cost to all of us. As my colleague, Senator Nelson Murray, said, it is becoming unviable for childcare providers to continue in business because of the expense of everything, including insurance. The providers are struggling to remain in business and the parents are struggling to pay for the cost of the childcare. The system is paying people the lowest wages in the country but it is unviable for the services to stay open. They are definitely not profitable but at the same time, the general public cannot afford to pay for places. Demand is increasing because the number of places is dwindling as operators close.

Senator Clifford-Lee mentioned the unmet need in north Dublin. It is everywhere. The situation is the same in south-central Dublin. I have sisters in Kilkenny and Tipperary. We all have babies and it is hard. One nearly has to sell one's soul to get a place in the local crèche. Even then, places are only available when a child turns one. What do you do before that?

The private model is broken and we need to move to a public model. I am encouraged to see movement in that direction. We need a model that will facilitate our workforce by facilitating both parents. Some people say they do not want their taxes paying for other people's children to be minded. The economy, workforce and tax revenue of this country will all be bolstered by the influx of parents who are highly skilled and qualified but cannot go back to work until their children are at least of school age. Some 85% of mothers leave full-time employment within three years of having their first child. Many women who are highly skilled in speech and language and other therapies are not going back to work after maternity leave. If we want a functioning system where all of these waiting lists for assessments of need or therapies are reduced, we need to allow the people who are skilled in those areas to go back to work. That begins with making the childcare system public.