I welcome the Minister to this House and the opportunity to discuss the Child Care (Amendment) Bill 2025. I am very conscious that the main aim of this wide-ranging piece of legislation is to promote the welfare of children who may not receive adequate care and protection. No one in this House could ever disagree with that aim. As the Minister said herself in her opening remarks, this Act has been amended a number of times and it extends over a number of key areas like childcare, foster care, residential care and child protection. I wish to address a number of these areas in the time available to me. The Minister mentioned in her opening remarks about stakeholder engagement. However, I, too, share the concerns Deputy Kerrane and other members of Sinn Féin have raised about GALs in this country. It is very worrying that they are writing to us all about the lack of consultation in the preparation of this new service. It would seem the experience that these GALs have had over a long period - 15 years plus - is not being taken into consideration in the development of such an important new service. It is being said that one of the most important aspects of a child being in court is that they have representation. Surely, we should be listening to those who have that experience over the last period of time and those years. Again, I support the calls that the Minister would meet with the GALs' representative association in the quickest possible time, and listen to their concerns. Most importantly, we should listen to their experience of the day-to-day work they do on behalf of so many children while protecting them in this country. The other area on which I wish to concentrate is the State's provision of residential capacity and the privatisation of residential care of vulnerable children, particularly those who are in special emergency arrangements. The State's provision of residential capacity is continuing to decline. In 2020, the number of Tusla centres was at 127. This is currently only at 114 according to the latest figures, and does not include Tusla special-care centres. The special care centre bed capacity has actually decreased from 17 in 2020 to 16 in 2025. During the same period, privately provided bed capacity has increased from 321 in 2020 to 342 beds. More worrying are the figures relating to special emergency arrangements, SEAs. These are largely unregulated and private providers and do not meet the care needs of vulnerable young people. The facilities themselves are, in the main, not fit for purpose as they can range in accommodation type from hotel rooms to apartments. This point has also been made recently by the Ombudsman for Children. The latest figures available to me show the Government paid 31 private providers for special emergency arrangements from 2021 to 2024. One provider received nearly €41 million from the State over this period, including more than €17.5 million in one year alone. The next provider on the list received nearly €24 million during this time frame. So far, the State has nearly €200 million to these private providers, from 2021 to October 2024. Can the Minister explain why the Government seems to be privatising and outsourcing the care of vulnerable young people? As I mentioned previously, the Ombudsman for Children has also commented on the SEAs, stating they do not meet the needs of the most vulnerable children in this country. I am concerned about these facilities, following reporting from The Journal that these young people are facing criminal charges due to damages in some of these facilities. These actions will only further traumatise a young person who is already in a very vulnerable state. Fixing a broken window or door should not be a private provider's main concern. It should be addressing the young person's immediate care needs. The privatising of the care of vulnerable young people is a growing concern. I would welcome a further debate on this issue in this House. We should be facilitating the development of more public residential care beds to ensure that we can accommodate all children when they are in a crisis. Further investment is then needed in the requirement for more foster carers, which I have mentioned before in this House. Nearly €200 million paid to private providers could have been used to set up nearly 150 new residential centres, accommodating nearly 600 young people. That would reduce the need to rely so heavily on private care, as the Government is doing at the moment. On childcare, I want to raise the issue of the continual deficiencies in the early years education and school age childcare system. We have one of the lowest spends in the world on childcare, while parents are spending a second mortgage on childcare fees, as has already been stated here tonight. It is a system that is not working. It does not work for parents, it does not work children and it does not work for the sector. The crisis in the early years sector is having a knock-on effect on working families. Many families coming to me about childcare costs are saying that one parent is looking at leaving work entirely. As we all know, this has the most impact on women and their employment. They are reducing their hours and giving up their careers because the Government has not got to grips with the crisis in this sector. The Government needs to have the ambition to invest in a publicly funded system of early education. UNICEF has suggested 1% of GNI. This would equate to nearly €3 billion of investment in Ireland. We are currently a laggard in this regard and only invest about 0.4%. The other issue is in relation to the Minister's announcement about the public childcare models of early education that she will bring forward as a pilot scheme this year. She stated that her Department is investing €135 million to fit out or acquire childcare facilities. I firstly recommend that the Government ensures these new facilities are located in key areas of need, where there is a real lack of childcare facilities in the area. I have highlighted previously to the Minister that in my own county of Kildare, in Kilcullen town for example, many working families are struggling to find childcare due to the shortage of places. These are the areas where the Government must invest first. Likewise, my colleague from Donabate, Councillor Corina Johnson, highlights that Fingal ranks among the highest for childcare costs in the country. She asks that the Government use publicly owned lands across Fingal to build publicly owned facilities that are community-led and not for profit. I also highlight that overall, the State-led approach, while welcome, is very much light on detail on issues like staffing. What are the plans for the recruitment of educators? Will they be paid at the current rates or higher? Will they be employed by the State or in whose community? These are key questions that we hope the Minister will answer in the very short-term. We should already have a national childcare agency. I have highlighted before that more than €350,000 has been spent on an agency and we still cannot see whether it actually exists. I also highlight the hypocrisy of the Government investing in State-led childcare facilities when it continues to profit from the current crisis. I have previously highlighted that the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund has invested in an equity firm which made a €10.5 million investment in a private, for-profit provider. I also ask the Minister to make a commitment to the House to divest from such equity firms. There is already a shortage of workers. Without adequately addressing the ongoing workforce challenges, the Government will risk further deepening the recruitment and retention crisis in the sector. I ask the Minister to address that, as I have asked previously in this House. I will finish on one final point about child protection, one on which there should be no negotiation. We have all been deeply disappointed by rhetoric from some Government Ministers regarding social media companies and the use of AI, comments which parent will find very disappointing. Quite clearly, the use of social media and AI is proving to be a risk to the health and well-being of our young people. This is something on which I am sure everybody in this House can agree. We must put the protection and welfare of Ireland's young people before the profits of profit-driven billionaires. There is no negotiation. There is no discussion. We must always put young people first. I look forward to working on this, listening and dealing with the Minister's amendments as she brings them forward on the various Stages of this Bill. As I said, we will co-operate and ask questions in every way possible.

Sentiment score: 0.03