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.

Sentiment score: 0.02