Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)

First, I thank the Minister and Minister of State for their attendance, and everybody else who contributed to this debate. Our motion called for two things. The first concerned the cost and the other was to do with capacity within the system. Many people have made the point that the costs have reduced significantly. They have reduced for some, but not for all. There are still parents paying huge fees. Senator Harmon spoke about somebody paying €2,000. It is outrageous that any parent would have to do that. As it is, they are being forced to decide if they should give up work or studies or whatever it is, because they cannot afford to pay it. We need a system where all of the fees are capped, as was promised in the election last year when the Government said it would introduce €200 per month childcare fees. It has let a lot of people down as it now seems that will be over the course of the Government's term. That is not what the original promise was.

On capacity, there are two issues. One is to do with actual physical space. We are talking about new builds or extensions. They all take time. We need to be able to acquire vacant property now and have it restored. However, that is no good without the staff. Everybody has highly commended the early years educators, and I add to that. They are wonderful but they are not paid sufficiently for the job they do, and they are leaving in droves because of the cost of living. They cannot afford to live in the job they love and are qualified to do. They are leaving and taking up other positions. We need to treat this seriously and we need to treat it urgently. I recently heard of a couple who came over from India to take up paid positions. They came on work visas for highly qualified positions. They were settled here and starting work. They went to look for childcare and could not access it. They said they moved here from India to take up positions but they have no childcare. It was ridiculous.

Parents constantly say they find it difficult to find a place for a baby under one year of age, or even under two. We need to seriously look at extending parental leave. If you take paternity leave, maternity leave and parental leave together, it is not much short of a year. Why not extend it so at least the whole year is covered between the two parents so they can take the full year to care for the child at home and not lose money or wages?

My children attended a community creche when they were young. We do not have enough community creches. They are wonderful and operate as part of the social enterprise model. They are not based on profit. They are providing a service. Many of our private operators are only interested in profit and we need to get away from that model. We need our public model of childcare. For too long, childcare in Ireland has been treated as a private market issue rather than a public good, and that needs to change. I am disappointed with the amendment put forward by the Government and we will not be accepting it.