FG wants to make Ireland “best country in Europe for children” says Currie

Fine Gael will move to an affordable, high quality, public early learning and childcare model, a Fine Gael Senator has said.

Senator Emer Currie has said Fine Gael has been cutting costs for parents, increasing pay for childcare professionals, and improving supports for childcare providers while moving towards a publicly funded model.

“As a parent, I understand that families are under pressure to balance work and caring responsibilities, and we need to be doing everything we can to support parents.

“It has been shown that investing heavily in high quality early childcare and early childhood education reaps great rewards in later life.

“Already we are investing over €1.1bn in our preschool programme. This has reduced costs for parents and provided new funding for early learning and childcare providers to help them with the cost of running their services.

She also noted, “we have made major improvements for parents who want to stay at home, we have introduced paid Paternity Leave, and Parents Leave, and this year we extended Parents Leave to nine weeks to be taken within the first two years of a child’s life.”

“We are years ahead of our own investment target, but we will significantly build on this. That is part of the work that Fine Gael is now doing in further developing our childcare proposals.”

The Dublin West Senator said that Fine Gael wants to publish an action plan in 2025, with a view to achieving a public early learning and childcare model by 2030.

“We are engaging with stakeholders and costing up proposals to ensure we get feedback from all areas of the childcare sector,” she said.

“We want to give the nation’s children the best start in life and their parents the most choice when it comes to caring for them.

“An Taoiseach Simon Harris and Fine Gael want to make Ireland the best country in Europe to be a child and by moving towards a public early learning and childcare model, we are closer to achieving this.”