2026-06-30

I move: That Dáil Éireann: acknowledges: — the importance of affordable and accessible childcare for children and parents, neither of which are being achieved for many families across the State; and — that there is no early years or childcare sector without the Early Years Educators and School-Age Childcare practitioners who work in it; notes that: — childcare costs remain far too high and are in excess of €800 per month in many parts of the State; — access to childcare is now a major labour market issue affecting our economy; — the need to ensure regulations for childminders are fair, and are aimed at growing the number of childminders, not reducing them, while acknowledging that less than 200 of an estimated 16,000 childminders have registered with Tusla; — there are between 40,000 and 50,000 children on waiting lists for childcare places, many which do not exist due to severe shortages of childcare places, especially for babies under one year; — there is no published plan, despite being promised, on how to deliver a €200 per month childcare service to parents; — continued issues are being experienced by childcare providers with the Core Funding support; and — the current mechanism for pay increases, via an Employment Regulation Order, is not working for professionals in the sector; further notes the welcome introduction of State-led childcare facilities; and calls on the Government to: — immediately publish a roadmap to deliver €200 a month childcare, with a clear timeframe for the implementation; — extend the Building Blocks Extension Grant Scheme, to allow for the purchase of existing buildings, not just new, to increase childcare capacity quickly; — increase pay for Early Years Educators and School-Age Childcare Practitioners from September 2026, and begin work on examining the State taking over wages and associated costs in the sector, as a first step to a public model; — extend Parent's Leave and Benefit, to ensure a baby can spend their first year with at least one parent; — ensure the widest possible consultation with childminders on the Child Care Act 1991 (Early Years Services) (Childminding Services) Regulations 2024; and — initiate an immediate and full review of the Core Funding supports, as committed to in the Programme for Government. I am glad to have the opportunity to bring forward this motion on childcare and the early years sector. There are a number of significant issues in the sector that have been ongoing for some time, not least of which is affordability, but equal and almost more important is accessibility. Cost is totally irrelevant to parents who cannot find a place that will take their child. There are also ongoing issues with the workforce, in particular the educators, who year-on-year - this year, last year and the year before - are at the whim of a joint labour committee, JLC, which might give them 65 cent, €1 or €1.35. Once again this year, no increase will be in place in time for September. That is no way at all to treat these professionals. I met some who said to me that they find it difficult to do a four-year degree and come out to earn an amount of money per hour that they could earn in the local supermarket. That is no level of respect for these professionals, without whom we would have no childcare sector and would not have to worry about places or cost. There is an ongoing issue with childminders. I note the Minister's amendment references having extensively consulted childminders on the regulations. I have no doubt those efforts were made, but the situation is serious for childminders and my question is, if they were extensively engaged with, why do we have a situation where well under 200 of them have signed up to the regulations and registered with Tusla to date, with the deadline of September 2027 looming? Approximately 160 of the 13,000 to 15,000 childminders in the State have signed up. There is clearly an issue. No matter how hard the consultation was in terms of its significance, it clearly has not worked. There is a major issue and there is a huge job of work to be done. I bring forward the six requests in this motion in good faith and because I want to see a better childcare service. There are measures that have come along under the State-led model, which I welcomed, but I would like it to be expanded in the building blocks expansion grant scheme. I have raised this issue with the Minister many times. If we can develop State-led, not-for-profit childcare now under the new State-led model, why can we not expand the building blocks scheme to buy existing buildings instead of focusing solely on new builds and new purchases? That would be a way to build capacity and do so quickly. I met a community childcare provider recently that has expanded its places and will be able to provide an additional 40 places in its childcare setting. There are 140 children on its waiting list. The provider knows that, as parents see the extension being built, they will hope and expect to get a place for their child, while capacity will not come close to demand. Affordability continues to be an issue. The cost reduction in the maximum fees payable announced recently puts the cost today closer to €200 per week than €200 per month. It is incredible that we still have no roadmap for how we will get to €200 per month. That should be in place. The plan should be published. It was all the talk of the last general election. The Minister's amendment also speaks about parent's leave and benefit, maternity leave and the leave available specifically to two-parent families. There is an ongoing anomaly, which I have raised many times, for one-parent families. It would cost a small amount of money. It is wrong that babies who grow up in a one-parent family have less time with their parent than children who grow up in a two-parent family. That should be corrected and it needs to be done. We want to see the extension of parent's leave and benefit to bring parents - in both one-parent and two-parent families - to being able to spend the first year with their children. That is important and we need to make far greater headway on it. Lastly on the motion's requests, the Government needs to do its homework on the State taking on the wages. We have a crisis in recruitment and retention. In some counties, the turnover is up to 50% and it is actually 50% in some. We have to give respect and recognition to early years educators. Giving them 65 cent or €1.35 here and there and waiting to see what the Labour Court decides is no way to treat professionals in the sector. If we do not make a move as bold as I believe we should by taking on the wages, we will not have the sector, including the workforce. We will not retain them to ensure children see the same face every day, which is a positive benefit for children's development, but would also ensure we have a strong and resilient childcare sector into the future. That is not there right now as I bring this motion forward.

Our motion recognises a simple truth. Affordable childcare is not a luxury. It is an essential public service, a service families must be able to access. Crucially, childcare providers and early years educators must also be properly supported. In Galway, the reality is very different from the picture painted by the Government. Parents contact me all the time because they cannot secure a childcare place. Many are forced onto lengthy waiting lists even before their children are born. Others are travelling significant distances because there simply is not the capacity in their local communities. That places a huge amount of pressure on parents who are trying to work and keep their families going while they are already struggling with the cost-of-living crisis. Childcare fees are going up despite the Government giving us assurances that it had a plan, not only to stop this happening, but to reduce prices to €200 per month. That election promise was completely and utterly ignored. As childcare costs spiral out of control, families rightly ask what happened to these promises. The truth is that providers are also under huge financial pressure. They are battling rising costs, recruitment difficulties and uncertainty about future funding. In recent years, we have had a situation where some providers have reached a point where they simply cannot continue. Every provider that closes means there are fewer places, longer waiting lists and greater pressure on those that remain. There is a knock-on effect on everyone, but I hear particularly from mothers. Many mothers have reached out to me to tell me they simply cannot get back to work. Women are finding it impossible to get access to childcare places within the first year of their child's life, while clearly the maternity entitlement in the State does not match that reality. Many babies just do not have a childcare space. Many women say the child is on a waiting list without any other option afforded to them while they are looking to get back into work. These women tell me they need immediate action to get the support they need. This can only be achieved by making childcare affordable so it is within the reach of families, but also by creating the spaces necessary to accommodate all the children in a locality.

I support the motion and commend an Teachta Kerrane for bringing forward all the solutions, which I hope the Minister takes on board. I want to get to a point where we have the €200 per month childcare promised not just by a lot of parties before the last election but also by Government representatives. That simply has not been delivered. Even if we get to that point though it is not going to be of value to many parents because they cannot get access to childcare in the first place. I attended a public meeting in Tramore, County Waterford a number of weeks ago. All the Oireachtas Members and local councillors were invited and it is a really good example, and one I ask the Minister to look at, of a town with a growing population that has not seen the investment in childcare facilities it needs. Parent after parent was talking about the impossibility of finding appropriate early education or childcare. It was a real barrier for some parents, especially women, getting back to work or finding full-time employment. There are new housing developments where the buildings allocated for childcare are empty and childcare providers say there is a real battle to provide services there because the subsidies do not exist or are not good enough. There is bureaucracy and lots of reasons and it is just not cost-effective - that is one of the issues. If we have new housing developments where there is a promise of childcare facilities as part of them but they are not being provided it is a failure of Government and Government policy. What the parents asked me to convey to the Minister is they want her to do a pilot project in Tramore of a State-led childcare facility and look at capital investment. The crucial issue providers and parents also raised with me is staffing. There is huge staff turnover. We cannot get the staff. There are obviously issues with pay. We have been asking the Government to deal with those for a long number of years. It is a major impediment to providing childcare places. Tramore is only one example of many towns, cities and rural areas where childcare is unfortunately non-existent or simply does not have the capacity it should. I am hoping the Minister will listen to what we are saying and take on board the solutions that are in our motion.

Tá cúram leanaí ró-chostasach agus níl dóthain áiteanna ann. For far too many families childcare is no longer just a challenge but a barrier to having children, returning to work or simply making ends meet. I am aware of couples who have delayed starting a family because of the pressures bought about by the combined costs of childcare and housing. That is not their failure but a failure of Government. This is one of the wealthiest states in Europe. There is no excuse for parents still paying over €800 a month per child for childcare while also facing soaring housing, energy and commuting costs. In my constituency, over half of childcare services in Cavan have waiting lists while in Monaghan almost two thirds have. That tells its own story. Families are paying too much yet still cannot get a place. Before the last general election Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael promised parents they would deliver childcare bills of €200 per month maximum. That promise has disappeared without any plan to deliver it. On the other hand, Sinn Féin has a credible roadmap to reduce childcare costs, expand capacity, improve pay and conditions so providers can recruit and retain staff, reform the funding model and properly support childcare. Deputy Kerrane has set out how these policies can be implemented and we need to take that advice. We need to give parents a real choice. Some want to return to work quickly and others want more time at home with their babies. Extending paid parental leave would recognise caring for our youngest children is valuable work that deserves the support of the State. Families in Cavan, Monaghan and right across Ireland deserve action on childcare, not more broken promises.

I thank an Teachta Kerrane not just for this motion but for all the work she has done because while the Government completely lacks a roadmap, an Teachta Kerrane has showed it how it can be done in terms of delivering for parents and children. Access to affordable childcare allowed me to finish college, to work part-time and then to move on to full-time employment. Affordable childcare was a game-changer for my family. The best way to deliver affordable childcare, and the Minister knows this, is by delivering it on a not-for-profit basis yet in my constituency of Dublin Fingal West we see the Government attitude to community childcare laid bare. I represent the youngest constituency in this State. There is a huge need for affordable childcare. Parents are being made to pay huge fees. That is when they can even get a place, because a lot of the children in my constituency are on waiting lists. Parents heard the Government’s promise of €200 per month yet they pay €800 and sometimes more. According to Fingal County Council the review of childcare that was due to take place in 2022 was abandoned. Now it is starting again, at the request of the Minister, to do another review. The Government does not need a review to tell it what is wrong. The statistics are there. All the while those statistics tell us a tale about the Government’s attitude to parents, children and early years educators in my area. There are 63,000 kids living in Fingal and 15,000 of them live in disadvantage. There are 800 community or not-for-profit places. For every 100 children in Fingal there are 24 childcare places. Our community centres are full of for-profit childcare providers. There is no space and no interest from this Government in community childcare and the parents, the kids and the early-year educators in my constituency of Dublin Fingal West deserve so much better.

Families who rely on childcare and those who work in the sector are being profoundly let down. I will speak about the families who rely on it first. For many that is €800 or €900 a month if they are relying on it full time. There are also many parents who rely on it for two or three children and for them the costs are crippling. This is true at all stages and we need to get to a place where we have wraparound childcare. This is quite a stressful time for parents because schools have finished. Parents up and down the country are trying to work a patchwork quilt of a few hours with a parent here, a summer camp there and a few hours with a childminder. It all speaks to our never having got to grips with a public childcare model in this State and that has to be the direction. We need to treat this as a public good and it needs to be publicly provided. That is the direction we need to go in. While I recognise that in the moment we are in subsidies to the sector are necessary it seems the Government’s strategy, just as with housing, is to rely on that. It is to constantly build it more into the system and add subsidy after subsidy while ultimately not building the public service we need. People who have to pay childcare fees while renting find there is nearly nothing left. That could be €2,500 just for those two costs alone. The other thing this place needs to get to grips with is it is not just the parents' problem but a problem for all of us. It is a problem for the whole of our society. It is a strategic problem. There are people who are prevented from being able to go out and get a job, keep a full-time job or stay in the workforce because they cannot get childcare. It is a problem for us all because there are people out there who are making the decision to put off having a second, third or perhaps even a first child because they cannot afford it. It is dictating where people live and many other things like that. We have to get to grips with the fact it is a problem for all of us we have to solve for the good of us all.

I commend Deputy Kerrane on bringing forward this motion. I remember five or six years ago Kathleen Funchion, the former TD for Carlow-Kilkenny, began a process of speaking to childcare providers and families around the country about this issue. It was an issue for everyone in every constituency in the country. We were meeting families who could not get childcare and when they could it was extremely expensive. Those working as early-years educators were in the very same position. They could not afford to continue to work in the sector after going to college and qualifying. They loved working with children yet they could not afford to continue to do that. We recognised something needed to be done and Deputy Kerrane continued to develop that policy until we clearly set out a goal that we wanted to see a wraparound childcare service that would be available for everybody, be affordable and that the State would stand over. Then, before the most recent election, the Government party came along and said, "This is a good idea", so what did it do? Instead of actually adopting the policy we had, it adopted the announcement and said it was going to provide this. However, there was no plan to do it whatsoever and now we are in the situation where we continue to hear the Government talk about it but actually not deliver it. That is really the problem we have here. We have a situation where many people around the country have been waiting since the Government came into power for this €200 per month for childcare. There is absolutely no sign of it whatsoever. I speak to people in my constituency who are still paying through the nose for a service they can ill afford at the same time as every other cost has gone through the roof, and we still have the situation where the people who work as early years educators cannot get an adequate salary to ensure that they can continue to work in the profession. The Minister needs to recognise that what we are bringing forward tonight is a solution to a problem not just for the people who work in the sector but for thousands of people around the country who are being pushed out of a situation where they cannot go to work because they cannot afford childcare. It really needs to be examined and sorted out.

What we need is a fit-for-purpose public system. I commend Deputy Kerrane on her work. Unfortunately, we had promises around affordability from the Government and at this point, we have neither affordability nor accessibility. It does not work for childminders. It does not work for childcare providers. It certainly does not work for those who work within it or the parents who are contacting all of us. A constituent wrote to me. She stated: I am writing to ask for your assistance regarding an urgent childcare issue that is placing my employment at risk. I am a Clinical Nurse Specialist in Mental Health ... in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda. I am passionate about my work and have worked hard to achieve my current position. My partner is an electrician ... and we have both invested years of training and dedication into our careers. For the past year, I have been continuously contacting crèches throughout County Louth in an effort to secure childcare for our child. Despite my efforts, I have repeatedly been told that waiting lists are extremely long and that no places are available. The only childcare place that I have been able to secure is in County Armagh. As a result, I am paying over €270 per week for just three days of childcare. ... The arrangement also requires a significant additional daily commute as I live in [north Louth] and work in Drogheda, meaning I am travelling in the opposite direction before then commuting back to work. Unfortunately, the situation is becoming financially and practically unsustainable. I am now faced with the possibility of having to resign my job that I love simply because I cannot access affordable childcare closer to home. Given the ongoing challenges facing mental health services and emergency care, I am deeply concerned that a lack of childcare provision could force experienced healthcare professionals out of the workforce. I am eager to continue serving patients in County Louth and contributing to mental health services, but I need support in finding a viable childcare solution. I have spoken to the Louth childcare committee and I think it is straightforward. I am sure the Minister may be aware there are currently no childcare places allowed for children full-time or part-time, especially within the age range from zero to three years. That says it all.

I move amendment No 1: To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following: "welcomes the significant prioritisation by the Government of measures designed to: — reduce out-of-pocket costs of early learning and childcare for families; — better align the supply of State-subsidised early learning and childcare with demand; and — increase the pay and improve the working conditions of Early Years Educators and School-Age Childcare practitioners, as well as develop career pathways and promote careers in the sector, in line with Nurturing Skills, the Workforce Plan for Early Learning and Care and School-Age Childcare 2022-2028; acknowledges the unprecedented growth in State funding in the sector, which has increased from €707 million in 2022, to €1.52 billion this year, an increase of circa 116 per cent; further welcomes: — the publication of Shaping the Future: Early Years Action Plan Phase 1 Report, in December 2025; — the extensive consultation process that has been designed to inform Phase 2 of Shaping the Future, including an online survey which has received more than 11,000 responses, 56 local consultation events, an art based engagement exercise with children and a national consultation event will also take place later in the year; and — the commitment to publish Phase 2 of Shaping the Future by the end of 2026, which will deliver a pathway to achieving the Programme for Government commitment to 'Progressively reduce the cost of childcare to €200 per month per child'; acknowledges and welcomes the major achievements of, and new enhancements to, the Together for Better funding model this year, in line with Phase 1 of Shaping the Future, in particular: — the continued implementation of the National Childcare Scheme (NCS), with approximately 277,000 children set to benefit from subsidies in 2026, including 47,000 children in lower income families who will benefit from increases in the income thresholds of the income-assessed subsidies, and from increases to the multiple child deduction component of the income-assessed subsidy for families with two or more children under the age of 15; — the continuation of the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme, that is benefitting more than 105,000 children in 2026, as the ECCE enjoys uptake rates in excess of 96 per cent and has removed barriers to accessing pre-school education, with data from a recent review showing that more than 40 per cent of families would not have been able to send their child to pre-school without this programme; — the award-winning Access and Inclusion Model (AIM), which is supporting up to 9,000 children with a disability to access the ECCE programme in 2026, and which has now expanded beyond the ECCE programme, where ECCE children are benefitting from AIM support outside the ECCE programme hours, both in term and out of term, and AIM capitation increasing by 10 per cent to bring rates into line with new rates of pay for Early Years Educators under the updated Employment Regulation Orders (EROs), last October; — the Equal Start funding model, and set of universal and targeted measures to support access to, and participation in, early learning and childcare for children and their families who experience disadvantage, with the number of settings being designated as priority settings, in receipt of targeted supports, reaching 824 in May 2026; and — the Core Funding scheme, with the allocation of €393 million in year four of the scheme, September 2025-August 2026, set to rise by at least 23 per cent, or €90 million, in year five September 2026-August 2027, to €483 million, to support a range of important priorities, including: — accessibility for families, through funding for growth in the sector at 4.2 per cent; — affordability to support services to sustainably maintain fee management conditions, including new maximum fee caps benefiting parents facing the highest fees across the country, under the new maximum fee caps, the highest possible upfront cost for a typical full day place of 45 hours per week will drop from around €198 per week to €183.70 per week, with universal subsidies under the NCS, higher subsidies are available for many parents, depending on their level of income and the age and number of children in their family; and — quality through support, with the costs of the new EROs that commenced on 13th October, 2025, through which approximately 67 per cent of staff working in the sector saw an increase in pay, and through additional ringfenced funding of up to €45 million, in year five of the scheme, which is contingent on updated EROs by the independent Joint Labour Committee, with these negotiations underway; further acknowledges that: — since Core Funding was introduced, its effectiveness has been subject to ongoing review, and the scheme itself has evolved year-on-year, with changes, including targeted measures and a fee increase assessment process informed by data from previous years, feedback from stakeholders, as well as an independent financial review of sessional services by Frontier Economics; and — a review of the first year of Core Funding and the development of an evaluation framework for Core Funding is currently underway, and this review, which is being undertaken by the Irish Government Economic and Evaluation Service policy analysts, will be completed in the coming months; further again, acknowledges and welcomes that: — childminders were extensively consulted with and involved in all aspects of the development of the Child Care Act 1991 (Early Years Services) (Childminding Services) Regulations 2024, which were designed to be proportionate and appropriate to the home and family setting in which an estimated 13,000 childminders work; — an independent external review of the draft Childminding Regulations by Dr Bill Maxwell, the former Chief Executive Officer of Education Scotland, former Chief Inspector in both Scotland and Wales, and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development consultant, confirmed that the approach was proportionate for childminding in Ireland; and — the independent review of the initial implementation of the Childminding Regulations launched on 19th June, with an open call for submissions, the review will include consultation with childminders and other stakeholders and will provide an important opportunity to learn lessons from initial experiences with the regulations, a consultation survey will follow the call for submissions, in addition to focus groups, stakeholder interviews, and case studies, the scope of the review is broader than initially outlined in the National Action Plan for Childminding 2021-2028, and will now also examine the effectiveness of supports made available to assist with the registration of childminders, as well as examining the barriers to registration and regulatory compliance, including financial and information barriers; also welcomes the transformed Forward Planning and Delivery Unit, with ground-breaking work underway in that unit to develop a forward planning model, and introduce State-led services to provide high-quality, accessible early learning and childcare, to operate alongside private and community providers where there are shortfalls in capacity, supported by €135 million in capital funding over the period 2026-2030; in addition, acknowledges and welcomes the latest data from a range of sources that shows capacity in the early learning and childcare sector is increasing in terms of the number of places and hours of provision that services are offering, the number of places opening, and the number of staff in the early learning and childcare workforce, with: — a net increase in registered, centre-based services in 2025 of 255, compared with net increases of 30 in 2022, 129 in 2023, 226 in 2024; — a year-on-year decline in the number of closures, with 138 closures in 2025, compared with 183 in 2022, 167 in 2023, 131 in 2024; — a net increase of 40 in registered, centre-based services this year to date, January-April 2026; — a 25 per cent increase in child enrolments between 2022 and 2025, from 197,186 to 247,011 children, against a backdrop of a 12 per cent decline in the under-five population; and — a 23 per cent increase in staff working in the sector between 2022 and 2025, from 34,359 to 42,130 staff; furthermore, welcomes: — the major progress made on family leaves in recent years under the First 5: A Whole-of-Government Strategy for Babies, Young Children and their Families 2019-2028; — the combined durations of Maternity, Paternity and Parent's Leave and Benefit now equate to 46 weeks' paid leave for a two-parent family, supplemented by an entitlement to 16 weeks of unpaid Maternity Leave, and 26 weeks of unpaid parental leave per parent; and — the Programme for Government commits to examining the extension of Parent's Leave and Benefit and additional flexibilities; and also acknowledges that: — there continues to be evidence of some families having difficulty finding appropriate places at a cost that is affordable, and that despite progress in recent years, owing to intervention by the State, the workforce in the sector remains a low-paid one; and — while noting that further developments and investment are required, recognises that there are many positive and progressive elements to the current early learning and childcare sector, and acknowledges the pathway for improving access, affordability and quality is set out in the new Programme for Government.". I welcome the opportunity to speak on the motion and to contribute to what is an essential and timely debate on early learning and childcare. I would like to acknowledge the importance of this issue not just as a policy matter, but as one that directly affects children and families, educators and practitioners, providers and our wider society and economy. For the information of the House, I have tabled an amendment to this motion. I do so not to dismiss the concerns sincerely raised but to ensure that this House has a full, balanced and evidence-based understanding of where early learning and childcare stands today and the direction in which we are moving. While we have seen real and measurable progress in recent years with significant increases in State investment, reductions in out-of-pocket costs for parents, growth in capacity across the sector and improvements in workforce pay, the Government fully acknowledges the challenges that remain in early learning and childcare, particularly in terms of costs and availability of places for many families. However, I emphasise at the outset that this debate should not be framed solely in terms of affordability and accessibility. Quality must also stand as a central and interconnected pillar of early learning and childcare policy. That is why this Government's approach is not just to reduce costs or expand but to build a system that delivers high-quality experiences for every child, supported by a skilled and valued workforce. There are real issues and they are not being dismissed by the Government. They are recognised and they are being addressed: in a structured, multi-annual and evidence-based reform programme through Shaping the Future, the early years action plan. As Members are aware, phase 1 of this plan was published in December 2025. It sets out concrete actions already being delivered in 2026 across affordability, access and quality. Phase 2, to be published by the end of 2026, will build on this with further medium-term reforms. It will set out a clear pathway to achieving the programme for Government commitment of reducing parental fees to €200 per month over the lifetime of this Government as is committed and reflected in the programme for Government. It will be grounded in evidence, stakeholder engagement and consultation. More than 11,000 submissions have been received through the consultation process, supported by 56 local consultation events right across the country. That is not the absence of a plan. This is a Government that is developing policy in partnership with children and families, educators and practitioners and providers to ensure it delivers real and sustained change. We must move forward, but we must do so in a way that is durable and supports the entire system. On the issue of affordability, the motion asserts that costs remain too high and for many families, that is true. However, the motion fails to acknowledge the scale of progress already made. OECD data shows that between 2022 and 2025 o childcare costs for couples on the average wage fell from 23% to 12% of household income, while childcare costs for lone parents on the average wage fell from 23% to 13% of household income. Central Statistics Office, CSO, data show that since September 2022, the consumer price index for childcare has fallen by 37%. That is a remarkable and unprecedented reduction in a context of high inflation, which was achieved through the combined impact of consistent and sustained subsidy increases in the national childcare scheme and fee management measures under core funding. That is putting real money back into the pockets of families. We are not waiting for some future point to deliver affordability. we have already started the process of delivering it. Budget 2026 builds on this progress by: increasing investment to over €1.5 billion, which he highest ever level of state support; expanding subsidies under the national childcare scheme to benefit hundreds of thousands of children; and introducing further fee caps to reduce the highest costs faced by parents. Under these new fee caps, the maximum cost of a full-time place is falling further, with additional support for families on low income available through increases in income-related subsidies under the national childcare scheme. However, I do know we have much more to do to make our programme for Government commitment of reducing parental fees to €200 per month over the lifetime of Government a reality. Let me also address important issues on workforce. The motion raises concerns about pay and rightly highlights the importance of the workforce. The Government agrees; there is no early learning and childcare sector without educators and practitioners. That is why we are continuing to support the joint labour committee process, the formal and independent mechanism for setting pay levels. Although the State is not the employer, through budget 2026, up to €45 million in additional ring-fenced core funding has been provided to support further improvements, contingent on new employment regulation orders. This has been an effective approach. Negotiations by the independent joint labour committee are now under way to determine the pays of rate for what will be the fourth set employment regulation orders since 2022. Over the last three sets of employment regulation orders, wages in the sector have increased by 25%. The Government has supported employers in meeting the cost of these wage costs, notwithstanding the fact that employers are private operators and the State is not an employer in this sector. At the same time, as articulated in phase 1 of Shaping the Future, we are examining through phase 2 of shaping the future where alternative mechanisms may better support long-term improvements in pay and conditions. This reflects a Government that is both acting now and planning ahead. The motion calls for a review of core funding. A review of the scheme is already under way. Since its introduction, we have ensured core funding has involved continuous monitoring, adjustment and refinement. A formal evaluation of its first year is currently being conducted alongside the development of a robust long-term evaluation framework. This ensures that the scheme remains effective, it evolves based on evidence and feedback and it delivers value for money. The motion, relying on waiting list data, suggests that capacity is simply not there, despite the clear challenges with these data that I have articulated in this House time and time again. There is no centralised waiting list. Each waiting list is managed at service level and an individual child may well be on multiple waiting lists in different services. In fact, they may remain on one or multiple service lists after taking up a place. Other data tell a different story. We are seeing strong and sustained growth in capacity across the sector, with a significant increase in registered services year on year, including a net increase of 61 more registered centre-based services between January and May 2026, a continued decline in closures, a 25% increase in child enrolments between 2022 and 2025 and a 23% increase in staff over the same period. This is clear evidence that capacity is growing. Alongside this, the Government is investing significant capital funding to increase supply. The building blocks extension grant scheme is currently being operated by the Department and will deliver up to 1,500 places this year. A further building blocks extension scheme will operate in 2027. The motion calls for Government to purchase existing buildings from existing providers. The Government has taken a clear position here. Our priority is increasing capacity. The Department is not offering funding to providers to purchase existing premises that would not increase existing capacity. Instead, the Department recently announced €135 million of capital investment over the coming five years for State-led services to provide additional high quality, accessible early learning and childcare. The process has commenced with investment in buildings in what will be a groundbreaking initiative. Concerns have been raised about the childminding review. Let me assure the House that childminders have been consulted at every stage of the development and implementation of the national action plan for childminding and in the drafting of the childminding regulations. An independent expert reviewer confirmed that the approach is proportionate and appropriate to the home-based setting. Furthermore, a new review of the initial implementation of the childminding regulations has been launched, and involves: call for submissions, surveys, stakeholder engagement and detailed analysis of barriers to registration. This demonstrates our willingness to listen, to learn and to adapt policy where necessary. The motion also calls for expanded family leave in the first year of a child's life. Through the Government's First 5 strategy, significant progress has been made. Parents now have access to up to 46 weeks of paid leave in a two-parent household, alongside unpaid leave entitlements. This reflects a strong commitment to supporting families in the earliest stages of a child's life. Further extensions will be considered, in line with programme for Government commitments. What is being delivered by this Government is not a series of isolated measures, but a coherent reform programme, one that balances urgency with sustainability and ambition with delivery. The Government amendment put forward reflects that reality. It acknowledges the challenges but it also recognises the progress, the direction and the pathway that has been set out. That is the basis on which we should proceed.

I acknowledge the work that an Teachta Kerrane has put in on this important motion. Affordable childcare is a real challenge for families in my constituency, Dublin Fingal East, one of the largest and fastest growing areas. We are seeing large developments being built delivering thousands of much-needed homes but there is little effort being put into planning good quality affordable childcare facilities to meet the needs of families. Those childcare facilities that are being built are not fit for purpose. They are not viable and the costs are way too high. Purpose-built childcare facilities are lying empty in Portmarnock and Swords. They are too small and cannot accommodate enough children to make them financially viable. In Donabate, a developer looked for a change of use to allow a crèche to be turned into two residential units because there was no uptake. Meanwhile Fingal has the lowest proportion of community-based childcare in the State. The Dublin region average is 33%. The State average is approximately 23%. In Fingal, only 5% or 16 providers operate on a not-for-profit basis. The vast majority of these are in Dublin West. This is creating a real crisis in Dublin Fingal East, where families, children and childcare providers need to see a radical shift in Government policy. I am contacted every day by parents who are anxious. If they are lucky enough to get a place in a childcare facility, they simply cannot afford it. In some cases, it is akin to a second mortgage. The introduction of the new maximum caps does not go far enough and many people cannot avail of them. Childcare fees create barriers to using formal childcare facilities, female labour market participation and tackling childcare poverty rates. Sinn Féin is determined to deliver childcare for €10 a day. We are committed to an early years model of childcare that is affordable, high quality, accessible and inclusive. There are immediate actions that the Government can take by providing a roadmap to deliver €200 a month childcare with a clear implementation timeline and by extending the building blocks extension grant scheme to include existing buildings. Something has to give because families cannot afford childcare.

Childcare is no longer simply a family issue. It is one of the biggest social and economic challenges facing this State. We heard earlier that parents are paying more than €800 a month in many parts of the country but in Dublin they would be lucky to get change from €1,000 a month. Even then, there are thousands who still cannot secure a childcare place. That is the impossible situation for many families who are trying to work, study and provide the best start in life for their children. I constantly hear from people I am talking to that they cannot afford to have a child, particularly those who have a mortgage. They are putting off having a child until later in life. The figures even suggest that is the pattern. People just cannot afford it and it is an impossible situation for many families. Families have heard promise after promise from the Government. They were promised childcare provision at €200 a month but there is still no roadmap. There is certainly no timeframe to get even close to that place. The core funding, we heard earlier on, must be reviewed so that providers are supported rather than buried in paperwork and bureaucracy. Every week, I get emails from parents where a childcare provider has pulled out of core funding and the costs of that family have skyrocketed. The Government has made a mess of core funding to the point where it is not viable. Simply saying that childcare must be made cheaper is not enough. There must be investment in capacity, fair play and, above all, long-term planning. The Government hates to consider any project that will last longer than an election cycle because, God forbid, it will not get the credit. Sinn Féin's motion sets out practical, achievable measures that will make a real difference for children, parents and childcare professionals. It is time to move beyond announcements and deliver meaningful action.

One of the best ways we can address the cost-of-living crisis for families with young children is to bring down the cost of childcare and make it more accessible. In my own constituency of Dublin Bay North, we have a lot of new housing estates with young families and the waiting list for childcare places is simply huge. The fact is it is stopping many people from returning to work. The cost for those who manage to secure a place are still way too high. While I welcome the progress that has been made in this area, the reality is that parents are still paying the equivalent of a second mortgage every month. When it comes to capacity, if it does not have the staff, the Government cannot deliver the places in the system. Therefore, we need to ask why is staff turnover so high and why is recruitment so difficult. It is very clear. SIPTU's report found that 86% of early years educators identified low pay as their biggest issue and two thirds also raised the problem of extra pressure due to staff shortages and stress. Everybody in this House will agree that the people we entrust to educate and care for our children should feel valued and that starts with fair pay. If we really want to deliver a public childcare system, we need to grasp the nettle here and begin examining where the State could take responsibility for wages and associated costs in the sector. Investing in our young people and their education from an early age benefits society as a whole. We can get this right but affordability, accessibility and workforce issues need to be addressed to make sure we do.

Childcare is a cornerstone of society. It promotes and nourishes child well-being, gender equality and a sustainable work-family balance. Not many institutions or organisations can claim that. They are the backbone of our economy. If they do not operate tomorrow morning, the economy would collapse and half the workforce would not be able to go to work, yet childcare services are coming under enormous financial and structural pressure. In most parts of the country, childcare costs are in excess of €800 per month, and in major cities, costs are reaching well over €1,200. Parents and guardians are at their tether, effectively paying a second mortgage for childcare services. Early childcare educators are poorly paid, with staff with bachelor's degrees at levels 7 and 8 not receiving proper pay in recognition of their qualifications. Providers themselves are under severe pressure, with many folding and others barely hanging on. That is why core funding supports must be reviewed to reflect what is happening on the ground. There are up to 50,000 children on childcare waiting lists, and staff shortages are having an enormous effect on room closures and administration systems, such as rotas and holidays being disrupted, mainly due to low pay. Rural childcare services also play a vital part in rural communities. Those involved personally know the children and their families, and some have been operating for over 20 years, but many are pulling out of the core funding. In fact, childcare providers in the Dáil last week stated that in September, 996 services would be closing and that, by the end of the year, that will reach 1,500. That is a lot of families with nowhere to go. Childcare at €200 per month must be introduced and core funding needs a full overhaul. If proper funding for childcare services is not put in place now, society and the economy will suffer. Childcare must come first, public good must come first and I ask all TDs to support this motion.

Families in Louth have heard multiple announcements from local government representatives, but no meaningful action to deliver the Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael election promises of €200 per month childcare in the first 100 days of Government has come. Childcare is not a luxury and it needs to be given priority in investment. We have more than 29,000 families with children in Louth, and almost 7,000 of those families have a child under the age of four. In sharp contrast, we only have 113 childcare providers, with 46% of these estimated to have a waiting list. We have parents waiting for places that just do not exist. The Government claims that improving access to quality and affordable early learning and school-age childcare is a key priority for Government, but the reality for parents I meet is very different. Natalie told me she does not want to have to choose between her being a mother and working, and she is already significantly disadvantaged in the workplace with regard to income and advancement opportunities. Lisa told me she has no option other than to stay working full-time just to make ends meet, but childcare places locally are a huge barrier to that continuing. Another couple at their wit's end told me they are both teachers who depend entirely on stable, affordable and reliable childcare, and that it is shocking to see dedicated professionals like them being pushed to the breaking point by Government policy failure. In January, the Minister announced a proposal to purchase buildings that will provide childcare facilities. When I asked what was proposed in these plans for County Louth and what additional supply was proposed for areas of disadvantage in the Drogheda and south Louth areas, the response I received stated that no final decisions had been made on specific projects, but that the Minister looked forward to sharing details of projects as they were agreed. It has been six months and there have been no details or additional places. Stock responses and soundbites do not help parents sitting and waiting on this. They are an absolute insult to the dedicated professionals who are working and struggling to keep the lights on and doors open. I call on the Minister to get real when it comes to the burden this is having on families. We need to support parents and invest in childcare, both in its provision and in the educators who deliver this service to our communities.

Affordable and accessible childcare is a vital provision that has fundamental impacts on both our society and economy. A well-functioning early childhood education and care system is key to the future of our children as well as our own success. A public model of early childhood education and care is the only way we can achieve a system that is affordable, accessible and which addresses the childcare needs of families across this country. While we work towards that model, we must cap childcare fees at €200 per child per month. This fee cap is something we have heard a lot about this evening, and indeed in the 2024 election, but it is very important we keep reiterating this. It was promised to every parent in the country in the lead-up to this past election, and it was promised to them in the programme for Government. Yet, here we are, still without a clear roadmap or timeframe for when this will happen. I often talk about how lucky I was and we were to be able to secure a childcare place for my daughter, Ren. It is lucky that I and my partner, Chloe, are able to work and continue our careers. We are lucky to have childcare costs that amount to a second mortgage. This is not the language we should be using or should have to use when it comes to childcare. Being lucky or blessed should not come into it, and it should have no bearing on your access to childcare; it should be a right. The average cost of childcare in this country is €850 per month. However, for many families, it is so much more than that, including my own. In my constituency, one parent got in touch with me to tell me they pay €1,800 per month for one child for childcare. That is absolutely shocking. How is that sustainable? While the cost of childcare is impacting families across the country, lower income families are always the worst affected. Earlier this month, the Government announced a reduction in the weekly fee cap for childcare services under the core funding model. This reduction was less than €15 per week, a drop from €198 to €183.70. This is far from the €200 per child per month price cap that was promised. It is a bit scary. Price hike after price hike continue to affect families across the country. No parent wants to say they will not pay whatever they can for their child. As a parent, you want to give everything you possibly can for your children. No parent wants their child to go without, but we should not be putting them in that situation. We should not be making parents choose between their careers and their children. This is not a reflection of the early years educators and school-age childcare practitioners who work tirelessly to provide a fantastic service for our children right across the country; it is a reflection of a broken system. We know this crisis disproportionately affects women, with mothers forced to put their careers on pause or give them up altogether. The national strategy for women and girls published last year put a strong emphasis on how unpaid care creates structural barriers that prevent women's participation in the workforce. A core part of these barriers is the lack of affordable, high-quality, early years and school-age care, as well as uneven pay for parental leave. These are factors that shape women's decisions on returning to work, access to full-time roles and long-term financial security. If our Government is serious about addressing the gender pay gap and improving gender equality as a whole within our society, it needs to start here. We need our Government to recognise that affordable, accessible childcare is fundamentally an equality issue. Our European counterparts recognise that access to childcare is an equality issue. For instance, in Germany, children over the age of one have a legal entitlement to a childcare place. Portugal's national system of early childhood intervention works on a multi-departmental level to ensure an adequate system of social, education and health supports for young children. Ireland's childcare costs are nearly double that of the OECD average. We are now an outlier in Europe in terms of how poor our access to early childhood education is and how unaffordable it is. I welcome the Government's building block scheme and the announcement that it will purchase eight properties for the provision of public childcare. However, this does not go far enough. As a councillor, I asked for an audit to be done of Dublin City Council-owned properties to establish if any such properties may be suitable for future use as childcare facilities. This is something I believe we should be asking of all our councils and their council-owned property across the country. Property should be examined for its availability for community hubs, including childcare facilities, as having access to these facilities in the core of our community is of vital importance. Core funding also continues to cause issues, and we have all spoken about that tonight. A Montessori in my own constituency in Phibsborough that has served the local community for decades is unsure if it will be able to open its doors next year. The sector is also facing serious challenges in recruitment and retention of staff. It is vital our plan for a public model of childcare includes proper pay and working conditions for staff in early childhood education facilities. Urgent action needs to be taken to address this. The challenges of recruitment and retention of staff in the industry is a major problem. We need to see a public model of childcare. Childcare should be seen as essential infrastructure rather than a private burden that is placed on parents to deal with. Childcare has consistently been treated as an afterthought by this Government, with a complete lack of thought to the design and implementation of a well-functioning system. We want to see what was promised to us by this Government. We want to see a roadmap for a provision of €200 per month childcare. Families across this country are struggling and we need to support them.

I thank Sinn Féin for bringing forward this motion. I am always happy to speak to childcare because, particularly as someone who raised my daughter alone, I know how important childcare is for gender equality and for families across this country who are just gasping for it at this stage. The other issue that stands out from my own experience is that having paid for childcare in the early 2000s for my daughter, who was a millennial baby and is an adult woman now, I see that the crisis has not improved and has, in fact, only deepened. It is yet another crisis that has been stood over by successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments. Back then, I was paying the equivalent of a second mortgage for my daughter's childcare, although I could not afford a mortgage at the time. Today, my area of Dublin Rathdown has the most expensive childcare in the country. Since becoming a TD, countless parents have contacted me at their wits' end trying to find and pay for childcare or worrying about losing their child's place. Childcare providers in Carrickmines, Dundrum and all across my constituency of Dublin Rathdown have pulled out of the Government funding scheme because they just could not make it work with the cost of rent and other overheads. That means parents across Dublin Rathdown are not even able to benefit from the rates under the childcare scheme, which are a far cry from the €200 cap promised in the general election and the programme for Government. Instead, many are paying more than €2,000 a month to keep their children in crèche, which is, in effect, a second mortgage. This crisis is pushing parents out of the workforce, adding stress to their lives and pushing down their incomes in what is already a cost-of-living crisis. Even when they can gather the money they need to pay the exorbitant costs, closures and a lack of spaces have meant many parents cannot secure a place for their child. They are caught between a rock and a hard place. Without a public system, this is what we get, namely, a service with not enough capacity and that is hugely expensive. We in the Social Democrats have been clear about what needs to be done. A public model of childcare must be delivered as a matter of urgency. We must see fees come down and certainty for parents that if they secure a crèche place, they can rely on it being there next year and that they will not be hit with skyrocketing costs. A public model ensures costs are brought down and can be set at a genuinely affordable rate. This is not a radical idea. It is something most European countries have. However, the work does not stop just with costs. We do not just need a more affordable system; we also must invest in capacity. If we rely solely on private operators, we will be unable to ensure we have the capacity planning to provide enough spaces in the system to meet the need in our communities. Childcare is a public good. It is necessary to our society and it provides vital early years education to our children. We need to treat it as such.

I thank Deputy Kerrane and Sinn Féin for bringing forward this really important motion. It is very close to my heart as someone with children going through the early years sector. I thank the early years educators who provide an excellent and caring service and who are absolutely not treated properly. I completely support SIPTU's campaign for proper pay and conditions. I thank the Minister for coming to my constituency of Dublin North-West to visit childcare and early years services and see at first hand the need for investment. I ask her to support the investment in early years provision in Ballymun that is urgently needed. People have raised the particular issue with me of young people in this country who can and want to have children but are deciding it is not possible because they cannot afford it. Alongside a cost-of-living crisis, we now have a cost-of-having-babies crisis in this country. Young people want to have children but they just cannot afford it. The cost-of-living and cost-of-housing crises have become so bad, our younger generations cannot afford children, or if they have one child, they cannot afford a second. We are one of the richest countries in the world on paper. The Government has record surpluses but it has failed to provide the most basic aspect of a functioning society, namely, the capacity for people to afford to raise children without living in fear and worry about being able to pay for the very basic costs. Barnardos has highlighted that almost half of parents are skipping meals to ensure their children have enough to eat. That is an absolute scandal. The cost of raising children in this country has increased by 60% in the past decade. Childcare provision is a key area in which the Government has the power to reduce the cost of living. However, it has failed to deliver its promise of a cap on childcare fees of €200 per month. We in the Social Democrats have a plan for making childcare affordable through public affordable childcare provision and early years services. This would reduce the cost for parents, improve workers' pay and deliver childcare for all those awaiting it. Tá costas iomarcach ag baint le leanaí a bheith againn. Tá cúram leanaí inacmhainne ag teastáil ónár nglúin óg. Tá plean ag na Daonlathaithe Sóisialta chun cúram leanaí a dhéanamh inacmhainne. Cén fáth nach ndéanann an Rialtas é? It is time to deliver public affordable childcare that provides decent employment for workers in the sector.

I welcome the Minister to the Chamber for this very important debate. I thank Deputy Kerrane and Sinn Féin for bringing forward the motion on childcare. We are all agreed on the importance of this issue, albeit it is somewhat ironic that we are discussing it after midnight. While it is positive to have this debate, it is the view of my party that the Government must go further to ensure there truly is delivery of public childcare provision. The current system of early childcare education and care is simply not working for providers, educators and, most importantly, working families. Ireland needs a new and radical plan to fix the childcare system. I have spoken previously in the House about the small and medium independent providers that are the backbone of the sector. They feel they have been left high and dry by the Government. They are barely breaking even, with some on the brink of closure. According to the figures provided by the Department of children itself, there have been nearly 1,000 closures of childcare settings since 2019. Families simply cannot afford any more closures. The Government continues to pour money into a broken system that only benefits large corporations whose sole interest is profit, not providing quality childcare. No one in the Government will acknowledge that we are sleepwalking into a corporate takeover of childcare. If this continues in the next few years, there will be no small and medium providers left. Then the system will implode, just as it has done in Australia. What will the answer be then from the Minister and the Government? As many contributors have stated, core funding is not the answer to fixing the sector. It simply does not work. Most independent providers cannot afford to stay in core funding and are left with no other choice but to withdraw. The knock-on impact of that is felt by working families as they face a massive increase in childcare fees. The Government cannot continue to pour money into a broken system. Childcare fees are one of the biggest costs facing working families, many of whom are paying close to a second mortgage, as the Minister has heard more than once tonight. All across Ireland, families are having to make difficult choices as to whether they can afford to pay for childcare, assuming they can even find a place. In my constituency of Kildare South, places like Kilcullen, which I have mentioned in the Chamber previously, have become childcare deserts because of the chronic lack of places. In most cases, it is women who are having to reduce their work hours and, in many cases, having to give up their careers entirely. Childcare has become the modern-day family bar, with women having to choose between having a family and having a career. Critical jobs are being lost because of Government inaction. It is heartbreaking to hear the stories of these mothers, many of whom are having to give up critical employment. This is something the Government must address urgently. The Government also must acknowledge that reducing childcare fees alone will not provide one additional childcare place. The Government must stabilise the sector by addressing the workforce challenges. The Minister must put forward a real and radical plan to set Ireland on a path towards a public system of early childhood education and care, not a State-led one. Educators are leaving the sector in their droves because the Government has failed to recognise and value them. Staff no longer feel they can make a career out of working in the sector. I agree that the State should be paying the wages of the educators in the sector. SIPTU has reported that many providers are struggling to retain staff, with an average turnover of 25%. Despite State investment of €45 million in pay from September 2026, no pay deal has been agreed. This year's joint labour committee pay talks only started in June and continue to prove difficult. Pay proposals were published in July of last year but still ended up being six weeks late by the time they were signed into effect on 13 October, while funding was available from September. SIPTU has been calling on employer representative groups to start pay talks as far back as the start of the year to avoid any delays, but they only finally agreed to start these talks in June. As things stand, it looks like the situation will be delayed even further this year. This means funding not spent on pay will be returned to the Exchequer again, which is totally unacceptable for educators, and will only worsen the recruitment and retention crisis in the sector. The Government must look at reforming parental leave in Ireland too. We need to ensure that parents are able to stay at home for the first year of their child's life, but we also need to ensure that more dads are involved in the care of their child. The current system does not support this. New dads are only entitled to two weeks of paternity leave at a flat rate of €299. That represents a nearly 75% drop in wages for dads who avail of this leave. That is why the Government must look at the Scandinavian model of parental leave. It must extend parental leave at a minimum for a full year and ensure that there are mandatory quotas in place for both mams and dads. Ireland needs a plan that works in genuine partnership with independent providers setting professional wages for educators and, most importantly, delivering good quality and affordable childcare for families.

I thank Deputy Kerrane for bringing forward this motion. While I support it, I do not believe it goes far enough. Again, we are skirting around the fundamental issue that is wrong with the early years sector. The truth is that this sector will never be properly fixed as long as we continue to rely on a private provision model. The Minister might point to the €1.6 billion and to the public that seems like a great commitment, but the reality is that this investment has also opened doors to corporate chains and private corporations. The Minister has allowed these entities to operate school-age childcare in public school buildings rather than using those public assets to expand State provision. A public system would allow the State to build capacity while protecting the small and medium providers that are the backbone of the sector and communities across the country. This sector is not a private luxury. It is infrastructure. It underpins the economy. It is a cost-of-living issue. It enables children and families to thrive. It is a women’s equality issue. Many Members will be my familiar with my parliamentary assistant, who has been campaigning on this since 2019. She helped to organise the sector into a union, fought for the first two pay deals and was instrumental in the Together for Public campaign. Based on her years of work, I believe the sector can be fixed. The solution is straightforward. We need to build a genuine public system alongside existing providers, expand State capacity, properly value the educators and stop relying on the market to deliver what is essentially a public service. The early years sector is fixable if the political will is there to do it. Unlike other major infrastructure, this does not have to take decades, nor does it have to cost a fortune. If we get it right, this benefits everybody. Early childhood education and care is a public good and we need to start treating it as such.

I thank Deputy Kerrane and Sinn Féin for bringing forward this motion. The Minister will be well aware that every TD in this House knows that parents are struggling with childcare. In my constituency of Cork North-Central, I meet these parents regularly. They are doing everything right. They are working hard. They are raising their families. They are trying to get on with life, but they are being let down by a childcare system that simply is not working. This is about far more than the cost of childcare. It is about a shortage of places, a workforce crisis and a failure to treat early years education as the essential public service that it is. Yes, fees have fallen for some families and that is welcome, but what good is affordable childcare if there is no place available? Parents need affordability and availability. Providers need certainty and early years educators deserve decent pay, secure careers and recognition for the skilled professionals that they are. For too long Governments have relied on schemes and subsidies to prop up a system that remains fundamentally broken. We need to stop asking families to navigate a patchwork of supports and start building a childcare system that they can rely on. The Labour Party believes that childcare is not a luxury, nor is it simply a support for parents. It is an investment in our children, families, economy and future. That means expanding capacity, creating thousands of new childcare places, reducing costs for families and properly valuing the people who educate and care for our youngest children because every child deserves the best possible start in life regardless of their postcode or their parents' income. We have long accepted that access to primary and secondary education is a public good. It is time that we recognise that high-quality early years education is too. The question that I pose for the Government is no longer whether we can afford to build a universal public childcare system, but whether we can afford another generation of children and families being failed by the one we have.

I thank Sinn Féin and Deputy Kerrane for bringing this important motion forward. For my generation and for young parents like me, or youngish parents anyway, childcare and housing are the crucial issues. Childcare and housing are both issues of accessibility and affordability. Both are also issues that have been left to the private sector for far too long and, in both cases, there is an urgent need for strong, direct State intervention. In this House last week, I raised issues with the Tánaiste regarding a local childcare provider in Knocklyon. Recently there has been a large number of last-minute room closures. Previous flexibility under a different ownership with summer hours or part-time after-school has disappeared, and parents have been left stranded with no childcare and no notice. Parents have had to take up to 20 annual leave days across May and June to cover room closures. They are scrambling to get family or friends to help to find and pay childminders, and it is all unbelievably stressful. The next big fear, of course, is that the childcare provider will pull out of core funding and hike its prices, leaving these parents unprotected by the very welcome fee freeze announced earlier this month. Parents have no option to move elsewhere as childcare places in Dublin South-West are so scarce. Parents are excluded from Government childcare supports and have to somehow suck up the additional fees which can double overnight, as the Minister knows, or otherwise parents, and it is mainly mums, just stop working. This is all due to the for-profit, commercialised model that this Government has promoted. We in the Labour Party have an ambitious, costed and revolutionary plan for State-provided, universal childcare in Ireland, where we treat it just like primary education, spaces are guaranteed for children, parents have certainty over costs and accessibility, and early years educators have decent terms of employment. Let us be clear: there is no issue with quality in the current system, but we have early years educators who go over and above every day only to be forced to sign on during the summer and we need to properly value these essential workers.

Is dócha go bhfuil an Teachta Ahern óg go leor.

The whole issue of access to affordable childcare is becoming critical for many parents. Affordability is an issue, and it is putting huge financial pressure, including a whole raft of other increasing costs, on parents. In the case of Laois, the average cost, according to the childcare committee, is €800 per month, but I have come across quotations as high as €1,400 a month. The shortage of places is the other issue and there are several blackspots across the county. In common with other counties, parents just cannot get access to childcare. According to the local childcare committee again, towns such as Portlaoise, Portarlington, Mountmellick, Mountrath, Graiguecullen, Rathdowney, Abbeyleix, Durrow, Arles and Ballylinan are short of all-day provision. Some have no all-day provision at all, and Mountrath is losing its ECCE preschool this month, which is unfortunate. The Government wants a population increase in Laois, and that is fair enough. It wants a population increase in the county of 25% over the next four to five years moving to 35% over the next seven years or so. Laois County Council recently rezoned lands for an additional 8,200 houses to be developed over the next four years, and further increases are planned after that. As matters stand, there are already long waiting lists and a huge shortage of providers, so action is required to meet the growing demand. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael promised to reduce monthly fees to €200, but we are a long way from that. There is a planned reduction in September of €14.30 per month, but at that rate it would take 14 or 15 years to actually get to that reduction planned by the Government. The budget in October must see significant progress on fees, but also improvements in core funding. Progress is also required on staffing pay levels. I welcome the Government's plan for €135 million over four years to provide directly purchased, State-led buildings and childcare facilities. However, given the existing pressures in Laois and the massive population increase that is planned, at least one of these facilities needs to be put into the county each year over the next four years. As I said, wages for staff and recruitment need to be addressed. A career in childcare has to be seen as a viable one for young people. It has to be made attractive. We need to reduce the bureaucracy and the volume of administration for the small private providers, while we have them. Overall, the State has to become the provider of childcare. We have to follow what is done is other EU states. We need a State-led system.

The provision of childcare services is an area in which I have had a particular interest and involvement for over 30 years. The Elm Park area childcare committee brought together community activists and parents from this area of Clonmel with the aim of providing a not-for-profit childcare service for the area. Clever Clogs, as we know it, is a community-based facility which provides a not-for-profit, quality childcare service in a purpose-built unit, supported by the local community. It has a local board of management, committee staff and parents. It receives exceptional support from the county childcare committee. As chairperson of the board of management, I express my thanks and appreciation to all those involved in Clever Clogs, particularly the manager and staff of the centre, the parents and my fellow board members. There are huge challenges currently facing the early-years sector. They include serious deficiencies in capacity; thousands of children on waiting lists; some parents paying up to €800 per month for childcare costs; poor pay and conditions for staff; and serious problems in recruitment and retention of staff. The current situation is untenable in the long term. The only solution is the roll-out of a publicly funded and delivered service. This is increasingly the view of all those operating in the sector and of those observing it, including the citizens' assembly; the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, UNCRC; the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, CEDAW; and Together for Public, an alliance of over 40 organisations, including the National Women's Council of Ireland, trade unions, academics, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, early childcare educators and many other civil society organisations. Childcare must be seen as a right for all and not as a commercial service. That means having a public childcare service similar to our primary schools. There should be a guaranteed legal right to affordable, accessible and universal early education for ever child. There should be better pay and conditions for early educators, who should be paid directly by the State. Public childcare is also a key issue for equality. We know that where the public system operates, women are much more likely to participate fully in society, whether that be in work, education, the arts or even in politics. The biggest obstacles for lone parents entering the workforce are the high cost and lack of availability of childcare. A public childcare service would certainly help in this regard. I thank Sinn Féin for bringing forward this motion, which I support.

I thank Sinn Féin and Deputy Kerrane for bringing forward this motion on childcare, which I will be supporting. Ireland is in the grip of a serious childcare crisis which has been allowed to continue for far too long. Parents are not only struggling to afford childcare but they are also struggling to access it at all. Finding a crèche in places has become an enormous challenge for families across the country, but particularly in Donegal where thousands of children are left without a place. The latest figures from Pobal show there were over 2,000 children on a waiting list for childcare places in Donegal, with childcare costing, on average, €180 per week. It is unacceptable that families are competing for just a handful of places. The Government must finally deliver on its promise of €200 per month childcare and take the decisive action needed to fix this crisis. The Tánaiste must also deliver on his promise to address early-years facilities that are impacted by defective concrete. We know there are over 25 childcare facilities in Donegal impacted by defective concrete. When the Minister was here she talked about urgency. There is absolutely no urgency coming from her regarding defective concrete in buildings with children in those buildings. Not only this, but we are forcing children and early-years educators to go into these buildings every year. This would not be allowed to happen in County Dublin but it is allowed in Donegal. I have raised this issue time and again but still the Government refuses to do anything about it. These buildings will not be around in ten years' time. Even our President, Catherine Connolly, has taken time out in the past six months of her Presidency to visit many of these community facilities which have been impacted by defective concrete. Yet, not a single Minister has made it their priority to address this. Even the Minister for children has tried to wash her hands of the responsibility. She has refused to answer a question I submitted regarding children impacted by defective concrete. Multiple community playgroups in Donegal face closure because they have been affected by defective concrete. Yet, under the current redress scheme, these childcare facilities do not qualify for demolition. The loss of these vital resources throughout Donegal will have serious consequences. In time, there will be nowhere for these children to go if we do not do anything about it. The loss of these facilities will have an impact on the population of Donegal. This will be only the beginning of the childcare crisis in Donegal unless the Minister steps up. We have been saying for years that 25 facilities are facing closure because of defective concrete, yet she does nothing about it.

I thank Deputy Kerrane for bringing forward this motion. I will raise two discrete issues that have been raised by childcare providers with me in my constituency of Dublin West. The first is the concern about the time it is taking for Garda vetting of applications from childcare professionals. This vetting procedure has had a new element added to it in recent months, namely, the European criminal records information system, ECRIS. This requires a new set of checks to take place, which is increasing by up to 20% the time taken for a standard application. If the applicant has an EU address, it adds ten days to the application. If it is a UK address, it is an extra 20 days for an application. This is really problematic because, as the Minister of State knows, many childcare providers are operating close to ratio. If they go below ratio, they may well have to shut a room, which creates great disruption for parents. If they are not able to get new childcare staff into the setting quickly, this is a consequence. Groups such as Early Childhood Ireland and the county and city childcare committees are supplying childcare providers with as much information as they can but this is a big change. I ask the Minister of State and the Minister to examine if additional support can be given by the State. I ask the Minister of State to sit down with the Minister for justice to see if there are any extra resources that could be given to the Garda vetting bureau to see if more can be done here. It is a big issue, and I am sure it is coming up in what the Minister of State is hearing as well. It is a significant extra burden, and while it is probably an important set of checks, if we can alleviate some of that burden for childcare providers, we ought to do so. When I was Minister for children I was very proud to oversee the first two pay agreements for childcare professionals, guaranteeing them rates of pay backed by dedicated State funding. I very much support the vision of degree-led teaching in our childcare system and the premium paid to staff who have a level 7 or level 8 degree to encourage and support this. However, we have to recognise that many staff have not moved past a level 5 qualification but have years or decades of experience, which makes them the very best of people to care for and educate young children. A provider who is good to their staff may often have a lot of these long-term staff who have not gone beyond a level 5. They are amazing but the way in which the formula is worked out means that the provider in such cases gets less in the core funding allocation than a provider with many more staff who may be younger and will not have as much experience but have a level 6 or a level 7 qualification. This is a dilemma I was not able to solve in my time but I would have loved to have been able to. I believe in degree-led teaching but we also have to recognise the amazing staff who have huge experience and the providers who want to keep them. More could be done there.

I thank Sinn Féin for tabling this motion. At this late hour, I thank most of the parties who have stayed in here to debate such an important issue. Last week when I raised these issues with the Taoiseach during Leaders' Questions, he outlined the level of Government investment in childcare, but investment is not the same as sustainability. The Taoiseach answered how much Government is spending; he did not answer whether providers can survive. All around the country and particularly in rural communities, childcare providers are telling us the current funding model places enormous pressure on them. Participation in core funding is not proof that providers are financially secure. Many remain because they have no realistic alternative. The real question is this: how many providers are operating sustainably under the current model? Government points to growth in childcare services but families deserve to know how many additional early years places have actually been created, separate from school-age children. Growth in after-school services is welcome but it does not help parents who cannot find a place for a baby, toddler or preschool child. There is also the ongoing unfairness of historic fee freezes. Providers operating under the same conditions can receive very different levels of income because of decisions made years ago. Government has county-average fee data, so why can providers not be brought up to the county average while wider reforms are examined? Let us not forgot what families were told before the last election. Parents were promised childcare costs of no more than €200 per month. That might be one way of getting votes but for many families it has proven to be a promise that has not been delivered. People took the Government at its word. The sad reality is many children whose parents were promised that support will be well out of early years childcare before meaningful action is taken. Families cannot keep waiting while Government points to spending figures and future plans. A sustainable childcare sector must be able to do more than keep the lights on. Providers need to be able to pay staff fairly, invest in their services, build for the future and expand where communities need places. This is one of the most serious issues today. A childcare system cannot be judged solely on how much Government spends or even by how much parents save. It must be judged on whether providers remain viable, educators are retained and families can access the early years places they need. That is the question providers and families are asking and it remains unanswered. It is remiss that we have not thanked all involved in the early years childcare sector. They have been through the most enormous nightmare in recent years. I remember when they were outside the gate and the Minister would not even go out and support them on the day. Sometimes it is about standing with a genuine organisation like this. They were not standing out there for the good of their health; they were out there for to keep the doors open. The parents came out in their hundreds to support them. Unfortunately, we had an uncaring Government then and I think we have an uncaring Government now because the sector is still feeling the pinch. I sat down with the sector's representatives over the last few weeks. I raised it very specifically at Leaders' Questions last week to the Taoiseach. He is not taking in the reality of the crisis they find themselves in. They are not shutting their doors because they want to but because they are given no choice in the matter. Successive Governments have ignored the crisis they are going through. The current Minister needs to step up to the mark and understand that. We speak quite a lot about bills. This week Electric Ireland is raising the price of electricity. Providers have to pay these electricity bills from money they do not have. It is a serious crisis and we are not taking it seriously enough. The people have been promised €200 per month. They are not getting anywhere near it and we are not going to keep the promise the Government made at the rate it is going. I think it is in the programme for Government. The Government will not suddenly give a huge amount of money. It needs to look at and speak to the sector. The people who know are the people working on the ground. The Government does not seem to understand that if they are in crisis and closing their businesses, there is something wrong somewhere. They are not doing it just to pass the time. These are very committed people. The people I spoke to have given time, blood, sweat and tears to their jobs. They are giving it up and paying it out. Sometimes if the wife is trying to run the business and is struggling, she is dipping into her husband's income from another sector to keep the doors open. It is astonishing we have let things go that far and that there is so little between profit and loss and between an early years childcare provider surviving and not surviving. The Government must discuss this with them, thrash out the difficulties, get this sorted and nip it in the bud before the next election. It needs to be done. They are willing to sit down. Any time they are sitting down, nobody is listening on the other side. That has been going on for many years. I ask the Minister of State, Deputy Higgins, to show interest in resolving this crisis if she really is interested in doing so. Everybody will then see there is a chance they will only have to pay €200 per month for childcare. It is all down to the hard struggling parents in this country and the early years childcare providers who have served the country with great distinction.

I thank Sinn Féin for bringing this motion to the floor. It is one of the more important motions we have spoken on. It is 36 minutes past midnight in the House. That is a great testament to everybody who has stayed here to contribute to the debate and be part of the debate. Childcare is one of the biggest issues that hits us at the doorsteps, certainly at the last general election. As my colleague just said, I was listening to people who said with great hope that childcare would be €200. Those people feel extremely let-down and disappointed with this Government and duped by this Government, to say the least. That needs to be on the record of the House. I respect the spirit behind the motion. I do not agree precisely with the measures within it but I plan to support it tonight. I want to speak of a childcare model that I think Ireland would benefit substantially from replicating. Ireland has among the highest childcare costs in Europe, often well over €1,000 per month per child. I have a case in my constituency where somebody is paying €1,700 per month for a child. It is not unusual and if we went onto the streets of Dublin, Cork or Limerick, we would find similar prices. The Government's response to this has always been to funnel money and subsidies through a formal childcare sector via the national childcare scheme, which assumes every parent wants and needs institutional childcare. Many parents do not. Some would prefer to leave their child with a grandparent, neighbour, friend, uncle or aunt, and some would prefer to have one parent at home, at least while the child is small. The subsidy system only recognises a registered provider, which means the State has already decided for you what counts as acceptable when it comes to the care of your own child. Finland in 1985 - 40 years ago - looked at that entire model and said it was not working for them. The Finnish childcare model developed in 1985 involved giving parents direct payments of approximately €340 per month if a child is under three and not in municipal childcare. There are supplements for additional children and local municipal top-ups. That means the parent gets to decide how to use the money and whether they stay at home, pay the money to a grandparent, uncle or aunt, hire a private childminder or make other arrangements as they see fit. The money follows the child directly and the family decides on what is best for the child. Almost 60% of the eligible population in Finland have taken this up. Denmark runs a similar system. Norway offers a similar scheme. There is nothing exotic or untested about what I am suggesting. The Finnish model trusts parents; our model in this country does not. In Finland, if a mother is happy to stay at home with the child, the state will support that. If a neighbour, friend or grandparent is willing to take care of a child, the state will support that. If you are a stay-at-home father, the state will equally support that. In Ireland, we only subsidise institutional care. I seriously believe we need to be looking at that and at different models. The childcare policy in this country tells parents they are not qualified to decide on what is best for their own child. It should be a parent, not a civil servant, who makes that judgement. My colleague mentioned viability and the situation in this country. I do not believe that. I am seeing crèches closing. I am getting calls on a regular basis, as I am sure are other TDs, - that there are crèches closing in Glanmire, Mayfield, Ballyvolane and Carrignavar. They just cannot keep the doors open. Then, there are people on the other side of it going into early childcare who are not getting paid a decent salary and cannot make a living out of it. They would love to be because that is their vocation. They would not have signed up for this many years ago but it is their vocation. They cannot afford to work in it and live and sustain a living today. We are just not getting childcare right in this country. It is not as if it is an illusion or a very difficult mathematical equation for us. We have an outdated model that is not working. We need to look at the best standards and practice across northern Europe that have been proven to work over and over again. The model has been working for 40 years in Finland and has 60% uptake. No other country is as expensive as we are for childcare. There is something radically wrong when we have parents who cannot afford to have a child because of childcare costs. That should be the last thing on their minds.

Throughout this debate, not one person has argued that we do not need high-quality, accessible and affordable childcare. Everyone, including the Minister of State, agrees that we need it and need it now. The question is not one of need; the question is whether it is possible to deliver nationwide, high-quality, affordable childcare for every family overnight. If we are all honest here, the answer would be "No", unfortunately. That is why in our programme for Government, Fianna Fáil has committed to progressively reducing childcare costs to a maximum €200 per child per month over the lifetime of the Government from 2024 to 2029. That is the commitment and that is the published plan and pathway to €200 per month. However, families are not being asked to wait until 2029 to see any benefit; far from it. We are reducing the maximum fees that parents and guardians can be charged year by year. In 2025, the maximum weekly fee was €295 and from this September, it will fall to €183. That is real progress, real savings for families and real money back in their pockets. Of course, there is more to do. Our commitment is not fulfilled but we are delivering on that commitment step by step and as Fianna Fáil spokesperson on children, I intend to see that work completed. Government investment in childcare has doubled in recent years and unlike in many other areas of public spending, families and providers can see the positive impacts of that increased investment. We know that recruitment and retention remain major challenges and for too long, early educators and care providers have not been recognised as the professionals they are, yet they care for, educate and nurture our children every day, often spending more waking hours with them than we do ourselves. Tonight is a case in point. The Government and our Minister recognise that. Although childcare is delivered primarily by private providers, the Department has provided ring-fenced funding specifically to support improved pay for staff despite the State not being their employer. The motion suggests that the Government should step in and take over the obligations of the private employer but that is unworkable. It is too much interference. Employers need to agree via the JLC the appropriate pay for their own employees. In saying that, the level of financial support is a clear demonstration of the Government's commitment not just to affordable childcare, but to building a high-quality sustainable childcare system that works for children, parents and those who dedicate their careers to caring for our youngest citizens. We are on the journey to providing a publicly funded State-led childcare model and we should take over private childcare facilities wholesale. We have very fine, educated, excellent private childcare providers out there who should be encouraged to stay within the industry. Running private and public models together gives parents a choice and gives them freedom and that is what we need within the sector. Core funding has been lambasted in the House tonight and generally as well as not providing enough funding and supports to our early childhood care providers but the facts do not bear that out. Now at the end of its fourth year, funding has almost doubled and is now a staggering €480 million. At the end of last year, the Department undertook an analysis of withdrawals from core funding over the three years of its existence. Some 592 services withdrew from core funding but 415 of them returned, which is a 70% return rate. So far, only eight services have left core funding this year, with three of them already returning. That is 93% of all eligible services taking part in core funding. That speaks for itself. I commend the Minister on the amount of reform that has been undertaken in childcare, but she is still seeking to extend existing schemes like the access and inclusion model to children aged three years and under. This model currently in operation can be a game-changer for our most vulnerable children. The earlier we get to our children with additional needs, the better their outcome. I thank the Minister and Minister of State for their foresight in this regard at the Department. I will continue in my role as spokesperson on children to advocate for as much funding as possible in the upcoming budget to achieve this and all our important goals in childcare. Some parts of the motion before the House tonight appear contradictory. In one part, it is claimed that we need more childcare places for children aged under one and in another, the Minister is being asked to provide parental supports to allow parents to stay at home with babies aged under one. I actually agree with both of these policies.

That is up to the parent if he or she wants that

I beg the Deputy's pardon.

That is up to the parent.

The Deputy might let me finish. I actually agree with both policies. I hope to see them progress with relevant Ministers, like the Minister for Social Protection. More places for children aged under one is being addressed under schemes such as building blocks already. I hope we continue to make progress on this over the coming years. Parents should have the freedom to return to work as and when is right for their particular families. Unfortunately, I do not support the motion but despite that, I commend Deputy Kerrane on her work on this and her experience, knowledge and contributions to the children's committee on which we both serve. I thank the Minister of State and the Minister for their work in this area and commend their progress to date.

Initially when I saw this tabled by the Business Committee last week, I wanted to get in early to speak. I did not realise it would be 12:50 on Wednesday morning.

It is early.

It is early for some people. On a genuine level, I am actually happy. I listened to people from Independent Ireland just before they exited the Chamber listing villages where, allegedly, closures of childcare facilities have happened in the past while. I think one was actually accurate. The rest of the villages were just thrown into the debate because it sounded good. That is not to say there are not problems in this area; there 100% are. It is not to say there is not a shortfall of places because there are. Trust me: I have been that parent with three kids under five looking for childcare and it is incredibly difficult living in an area like Glanmire, which is suburban. There are lots of young families. Glanmire is the only village that was named out of four or five villages in my constituency where closures actually happened in the past 12 months. I would like to place that on the record because the rest is not factual. That said, that issue actually had a potential resolution, which I negotiated with the childcare provider and a nearby school and they sought not to proceed with that. Again, as I said, it is inaccurate to suggest that there are wholesale closures in Cork North-Central. It is not true. That said, it is generally recognised that there is a shortfall of 40,000 places nationwide. There is no point in belying that fact. It is it is true and it is difficult, as I said, particularly for younger children under the age of one. I have experienced it in my constituency where it is difficult to get baby rooms for a whole litany of reasons. The reason I came in here tonight was to speak specifically about the State-led early learning and childcare capital programme, which the Minister announced a number of months ago. When I initially heard that announcement to €135 million over the lifetime of this Government, I was enthused. I brought a number of projects to the Department. Many of them are still being scrutinised. None of them has received a final response regarding if they are going delivered this year, next year or in three years’ time. I was initially enthused by that announcement. I understand that is part of a programme where we are targeting 800 places by the end of 2027 through that programme. I wish to speak specifically about one such submission that was made on behalf of the people of Glanmire. This was done without identifying the property by a private building owner who has full planning permission for up to 150 childcare places. He is willing to sell the unit. He is willing to rent. The unit just needs to be kitted out, which would take approximately two to three months. It is something that could be delivered fairly quickly. The building owner is quite open to doing this with the State. When I read through the criteria, I was enthused by it because I know this can be delivered quickly. We are still awaiting an outcome or decision on that. I want to speak about the area of Glanmire where I live. It has predominantly young families. It is a suburban environment. There are many people moving in from different areas and working in multinationals in nearby Little Island and the city. When I canvassed the doors in the recent local elections, and indeed going back to my election campaign in 2024, I will be honest with the Minister of State, there were issues around migration, the cost of living and the usual issues that we debate frequently in this House, but one of most the prevalent issues was access to childcare for those young families. I am here at 12.50 a.m. to make the case for Glanmire. It is a very large area in the east part of the city with 20,000 people. I speculate that if we do not see this opened, all we are going to see is more and more people going into the likes of Mayfield and further afield into the city and city centre to access childcare. I am here to make the case. I hope to have a meeting with the Minister in the coming weeks in relation to this application. I am just hopeful that it will be viewed positively because for a relatively little return of that €135 million budget that she has over the next while, we could see real delivery of up to 150 places in the village of Glanmire. I reference Cork Chamber which we get frequent briefings from. It has asked persistently that childcare would be recognised as essential economic infrastructure. When I look around my own constituency, there are people I know of my own age who are struggling to access childcare place. The necessity and importance that should be placed on childcare is obvious. There are many people either taking reduced working hours or trying to juggle work by working from home and having the demands of childcare placed on that is quite difficult. Again, some credence or scrutiny should be given to that request that it would be recognised as an essential economic infrastructure and resource it if the Government is going to make that commitment. My final point is in relation to special needs education in the whole area of childcare. There is only a handful of childcare facilities across the country that deals specifically with children whether they are diagnosed or yet to be diagnosed in terms of early intervention and so on. It is pivotal that, particularly the future public funding of capital projects as part of the scheme that I mentioned with the €135 million, a portion of that funding should be ring-fenced specifically to cater for the needs of children with special needs who are struggling to either access childcare, afterschool care or whatever the case may be.

I welcome the opportunity to conclude this important debate on the Minister's behalf and reflect on the range of perspectives that have been shared across the House. As the Minister set out in her opening remarks, there are three central elements that guide the programme for Government's commitment to early learning and childcare. First, while significant progress has been made, we recognise that challenges remain and are committed to addressing them. Second, meaningful and measurable improvements have already been delivered. Third, that progress has not happened by itself. It is the result of deliberate, structured and evidence-based programmes of reforms being implemented by the Government. This Government is confident that the commitment that we have made in the programme for Government will be fully realised over the lifetime of this Government. That includes ensuring that parents will pay no more than €200 per month for early learning and childcare. Early learning educators and school-age childcare practitioners will be remunerated at a level that reflects the importance of their work. State-led services will operate alongside private and community services, as well as newly regulated cohorts of childminders. Ireland will close the gap between its level of investment in early learning and childcare and the EU average. In its motion, the Opposition suggests that there is no progress or plan to deliver quality, affordable or accessible early learning and childcare. We as the Government do not accept this. This evidence is clear. Costs are falling. Investment is rising. Capacity is increasing. A structured multiyear plan is in place through Shaping the Future. Through the Together for Better funding model, including core funding the national childcare scheme and the ECCE programme, the Government is already delivering tangible financial benefits to hundreds of thousands of families. This year's budget builds on the progress that has been made with State investment in early learning and childcare increasing to €1.52 billion. That represents an increase of more than 116% since 2020. This level of investment is unprecedented, but more importantly, it is about delivering real outcomes. More than 105,000 children will benefit from the ECCE programme this year with participation rates continuing to exceed 96%. Approximately 277,000 children will benefit from the national childcare scheme with growing numbers of families also accessing supports through regulated childminding settings. As the Minister said at the outset, this debate must go beyond cost and access. It must be about quality outcomes and ensuring that every child who enters an early learning and childcare setting is supported to learn, to develop and to thrive. High-quality early learning and childcare can be transformative for children, supporting their development, reducing inequality and giving them the best possible start to life. Our task to ensure that every child has the opportunity to benefit from it. To realise those benefits fully, we must ensure that every child has the opportunity to experience them. From my perspective as the Minister of State with responsibility for disability, that means ensuring that our early learning and childcare system is genuinely inclusive. For children with disabilities or those with additional needs, access alone is not enough. What matters is meaningful participation, ensuring that every child is fully supported, included and enabled to achieve their full potential alongside their peers. The Access and Inclusion Model, AIM, programme is central to that approach. Through AIM, a range of targeted supports are available to ensure that children with disabilities or additional needs can access and participate in the ECCE scheme within mainstream early learning and childcare settings. This year, AIM will support approximately 8,400 children with disabilities. It will support them to access and participate in the ECCE programme while improvements to the AIM level 7 application process will reduce the administrative burden, and it will make it easier for services to be accessed. Alongside AIM, the Equal Start initiative helps to ensure that children and families experiencing disadvantage can also access and participate meaningfully in early learning and childcare. The programme now supports more than 800 priority settings nationwide, delivering practical supports to help children thrive and to address the effects of disadvantage from the earliest years. This includes staffing supports, nutrition programmes, such as Bia Blasta, language development initiatives like Early Talk Boost and targeted measures to support the inclusion of Traveller and Roma children. Taken together, AIM and Equal Start reflect the Government's focus on ensuring that quality provision goes hand in hand with equity and inclusion meeting the needs of every child. However, quality provision depends not only on the supports available to children, but also on the people delivering them every day. No early learning and childcare system can deliver high-quality outcomes without a strong skilled supported workforce. That is why this Government has been clear that improving pay and conditions across the sector remains a key priority. We recognise that the level of pay for early years educators and school-aged childcare practitioners does not yet fully reflect the value and the importance of the work they do for children, families, communities and the wider economy. While the Government is the primary funder of the sector, it is not the employer and cannot directly set wages or conditions for any staff in the sector. Instead, as Members will be aware, the Joint Labour Committee provides the established mechanism through which employer and employee representatives can negotiate minimum rates of pay, which are then set out in the employment regulation orders, EROs. Through successive EROs, minimum pay rates have increased three times in four years, delivering an average increase of 15%, as was referenced by Deputy O'Gorman who previously served as the Minister in this Department. Most recently, the October 2025 ERO provided an average pay increase of 10%, benefiting more than 67% of the workforce. In recognition of the importance of supporting these improvements, the Government has increased core funding from €393 million to €483 million, alongside an additional €45 million in ring-fenced funding to help services to meet the increased wage costs that will arise from employment regulation orders. At the same time, through Shaping the Future phase 2, we are examining how pay and conditions can be strengthened further over the medium to long term, reflecting a balanced, sustainable approach that delivers improvements today while building towards lasting reform for the future. In addition, €135 million will be made available between this year and 2030 for the State-led early learning and childcare capital programme, which will provide high-quality, accessible learning and childcare services. This programme will commence this year with investment in buildings, marking a significant milestone for the Department. Capital funding will support the acquisition or fit-out, or both, of buildings as required, with the Department working alongside not-for-profit providers to design, operate and open services. To access potential sites, a forward planning model has been developed within the Department. This model seeks to identify the nature and volume of different types of early learning and childcare places across the country and how that aligns with the number or children in the corresponding age cohorts at local area level. An extensive data analysis and cleaning exercise has been undertaken to map available publicly subsidised supply. Alongside this, a suite of appraisal criteria tools have been developed to assess potential projects against key performance indicators, KPIs, such as quality, inclusion, accessibility and affordability. The Department is now assessing project options in order to identify which ones are best placed to deliver on the goals of the programme. Alongside investing in new capacity, we must continue to support the services already at the heart of communities across the funding. That is what core funding is for. It is designed to help to deliver affordability for parents through ensuring no fee increases, maximum fee caps and offering the national childhood scheme and the early childhood care and education programmes to all eligible children. It is designed to deliver quality through investment in the workforce, including improved pay and conditions and support for graduate leadership within services. It is designed to deliver sustainability for providers through substantial and consistent investment in the sector distributed on an equitable basis. From its introduction, core funding has been subject to continuous evaluation and refinement and to ensuring that the scheme continues to evolve, respond to feedback and deliver value for money. For the fifth programme year, the Minister, Deputy Norma Foley, has announced an additional €20.6 million in new full-year funding, which will support services to maintain key fee-management measures, including the fee freeze and the minimum fee caps, supporting affordability for parents. This will help to ensure that the benefits of Government investment continue to be passed on to parents and families, while providing stability and sustainability for the sector. I am conscious there is a number of other points in my speech but there are 44 seconds to go and it is 1.05 a.m. so I am sure people want this to be wrapped. Very quickly, I will mention that phase 2 of the national action plan for childminding is also something the Department is working on really closely with childminders and representative organisations. That will be part of the plan. The first five strategy, which is about families who now have access to up to 46 weeks of paid leave alongside unpaid leave entitlements, represents a significant investment in supporting parents as well. Taken together, these measures also help. Ultimately, I thank everybody who works in this sector and the entrepreneurs who have invested and stood up businesses that are there to support families throughout the country. For everybody who works in this sector, it is a tough but really important job. It supports families, keeps our economy thriving and, most importantly, supports and educates children.

It is simply indefensible that more than a decade after the media started referring to the cost of childcare as comparable to a second mortgage, the pace of action from the Minister of State's Government could be so lethargic. In 2024, my colleague and the Sinn Féin spokesperson on children, Deputy Kerrane, published a detailed costed plan outlining how Sinn Féin would deliver childcare capped at €200 per month. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, in advance of the general election in 2024, went on to cog Sinn Féin's homework. The problem is that while the Minister of State's party lifted the intended result in its promise to the electorate, it never showed any workings and it has not since. Now, the Minister of State says it is not about cost. Despite Fine Gael having pledged to have a plan within 100 days, there are upwards on 50,000 children on waiting lists for childcare places, 50% workforce turnover in some counties and an employment regulation order process for setting pay that is simply not working. There is a dire need for urgency from the Minister of State's Government to finally publish a roadmap for the delivery of the €200 per month that Fine Gael promised in the election in 2024. With so many families continuing to pay over €800 per month, the Government's current policy - putting costs closer to €200 per week than per month - is simply not good enough. Our early educators deserve better. Families and their children deserve better. I ask the House to endorse Sinn Féin's motion tonight and let us begin the work of actually delivering for early years educators, the people who both need and deserve this. People have been waiting 574 days now for a plan the Tánaiste said he would bring forward in 100. How long is it going to take for this to happen for our parents, children and early years educators?

The Government announced a €135 million investment in State-led early learning and childcare. It is an initiative that promises to deliver thousands of publicly owned places by 2030. The principle is sound and significant but it has to deliver. I want, tonight, to insist that this promise must be delivered in County Meath. The Department's own analysis confirms that demand for childcare remains higher than available supply in certain parts of the country. Nowhere is this more acute than in County Meath. Dunshaughlin is a case in point. The Willows estate in Dunshaughlin now has more than 1,000 homes. When they first started selling houses there almost a decade ago, they did so with the promise of a community with essential services and amenities. Central to this was the provision of a crèche. The land is there, ready and waiting. Private providers have come and gone but still, there is no building or crèche. This is precisely the kind of gap that the State-led scheme is supposed to fill. Recent responses were repeated by the Minister again tonight. The Minister said that capital funding will be used to acquire or fit out the building, or both, depending on requirements. In the case of the Willows, there is no building to acquire or fit out. I call on the Minister to work with local not-for-profit groups to deliver State-led early years services at the Willows in Dunshaughlin.

The cost-of-living crisis is impacting families of all backgrounds. The bite is being felt at the petrol pump, at the grocery till, in the utility bills and beyond. For working families, one of the most expensive monthly outlays is childcare fees. Families in Limerick with both parents working full time who are not fortunate enough to have additional family support are paying up to €300 per week on crèche fees. For those availing of a childminder, the fee is closer to €250 per week, which is a significant expense, particularly during a cost-of-living crisis that has stripped families of available income. These are, of course, families who have been fortunate enough to secure childcare places in the first place. Up to 50,000 children across the State remain on waiting lists for childcare places that do not exist. In one of the most disadvantaged areas of Limerick, Ballinacurra Weston, there are 214 children on a waiting list with no early childcare places from September at Our Lady of Lourdes Community Centre. The staff in the local facility are faced with prospect of having to tell parents that there is no place available for their child. Childcare is not a luxury for families; it is a necessity that allows parents to go to work. While many parents struggle to find a place for their child, other parents worry that the childcare arrangements could suddenly end because of the difficulty faced in retaining early years educators and school-age childcare practitioners. It is abundantly clear from talking to those in the profession that the current employment regulation order is not working. The State must be prepared to work towards taking responsibility for employment costs and wages where necessary. Crèches across the State are coming under huge pressure due to the lack of sufficient core funding. One crèche in a Limerick suburb faced the prospect of closing its kitchen due to the lack of funding, adding to the cost for families who must spend more to provide meals for their children attending the creche. The core funding scheme must be reviewed. It should be done with a view to indexing it to inflation. Crèches and childcare facilities throughout the State are functioning month to month due to increases in the costs they face. I urge parties to support the motion's objectives of increasing the number of early years places and school-age childcare hours in September, the immediate review of the core funding scheme and publication of the details on how the Government is going to deliver €200 per month childcare with a clear timescale on how it will be achieved.

The lack of childcare facilities is truly reaching breaking point. In my own constituency in north Kildare I hear from families who are constantly frustrated in trying to find childcare for their child. In every town in north Kildare the population is growing rapidly but the critical infrastructure for childcare facilities is not being provided. I am dealing with one in Kilcock at the moment. The impact of this failure is devastating, especially for women, who bear the brunt of it. Every day women are forced to make the impossible choice to step away from their careers, ambitions and financial independence. I hear story after story of women who feel that the study and hard work they did to get a good job goes down the drain if they cannot get childcare. It is unacceptable that women are thinking like this in 2026. During the last general election campaign, Deputy Kerrane outlined a detailed plan of how Sinn Féin would deliver early childcare for €10 a day while increasing the pay and respect for the workers in the sector. The Government, after scoffing at it at first, subsequently promised to deliver it for €200 a month, which is a roundabout way of saying €10 a day, copying the Deputy's homework. However, the Government still did not get it right because it has failed in its promise to deliver €200 per month childcare within the first 100 days of Government. Furthermore, the cost of what it is promising now is more like €200 a week, which is completely unaffordable for many families throughout the State. While affordability is key, accessibility is just as important because that is not there either. It is high time the Government finally delivered on its €200 a month childcare promise and increased the pay and respect for the professionals in early years education and childcare practitioners from September. It is mainly women who work in this sector. The women on both sides of this know that their Government does not seem to care about women. The Government does not need to copy Deputy Kerrane's homework tonight. She is handing it the solution, if only it would take it.

It is as though we are reading two different motions. Contrary to what both Ministers have said, the motion is not just about affordability and accessibility. In fact, in that first €10 a day childcare plan in 2024, I ensured it was not just about affordability and accessibility, as I have done with this motion. It is about our educators. Mostly, the motion is about paying them what they deserve. It is also about childminders, core funding and parents' leave, issues I have raised repeatedly since I became my party spokesperson on children in 2024. The Minister cited an omission of high quality. Our educators and school-aged care practitioners are high quality. The problem is that high quality is not being recognised in terms of pay. The Minister said JLC is an effective approach to pay. There has not been one year where the Minister has not had to go out of her way to get the JLC to the table to actually deliver on pay. Most times, they end up in the Labour Court. I cannot fathom how that can be in any way called an effective approach to pay. There are educators who would earn more in a supermarket in many cases. They wait on the whim to see whether they will get 20 cent, 50 cent or 60 cent. That is no way to treat professionals. They are professionals at this level. We have had constant issues with core funding. The Minister said a review is called for in the motion but there is already a review. There is a review into year one. We are looking at costs from four years ago, which are totally irrelevant today, instead of looking at the core funding in its totality. When just 1% of childminders in the State have signed up for the regulations, she cannot say there has been excellent consultation and things are going well. Things are not going well. We need to look at child minders, look at our educators and at our providers. If we do not get pay right in terms of our educators, we can forget about costs and about childcare places; we will have no childcare sector at all.

Tá an vótáil curtha siar go dtí an chéad am vótála seachtainiúil eile. In accordance with Standing Order 85(2), the division is postponed until this week's division time. Gabhaim buíochas leis na Teachtaí go léir.