The forthcoming budget represents a genuine opportunity to deliver for those who are struggling to make ends meet. The Taoiseach says he represents those who get up early in the morning. I can tell him that nobody gets up earlier in the morning than those who are raising young children. While Fine Gael and their friends in Fianna Fáil engage in a sham fight over tax cuts, and hammer out a budget that will disproportionately benefit the well-off in society, young families in Ireland are faced with some of the highest child care costs in the world. In his so-called republic of opportunity, many parents are paying what amounts to a second mortgage to ensure that their children are looked after. The reason for that rests squarely at the feet of successive Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil-led Governments which completely failed to invest in the early years sector.

Announcing measly tax cuts that will put loose change in the pockets of those families is no good. They will not be so easily bought off. By signalling a preference for tax cuts over the necessity to build decent public services, the Government is choosing to abandon those families. We in Sinn Féin have also made a choice. We have chosen to stand on the side of the struggling families. We want to see a budget that puts their interests first through the proper funding and resourcing of the early years sector. High quality affordable child care is an essential public service. It allows parents return to work and avoid poverty traps and it provides employment.

The Taoiseach needs to wake up to the pressures young families are facing today. They are hanging on by their finger nails. He must commit to providing high quality, affordable child care throughout the State. In our alternative budget, Sinn Féin proposes an increase in the universal child care subsidy – from 50 cent an hour to €2.50 an hour. That is a fivefold increase. This measure would put €420 a month, per child, into the pockets of struggling families. It would make a real difference not only for parents, but also for child care providers who are prevented from reinvesting in their services as they operate on a break-even basis. My question to the Taoiseach is very simple. Will he adopt this proposal in budget 2018 and give those families a real break?

First, I would like to restate the budget priorities that I have stated now on a number of occasions but I will do it again in the House so that everyone can hear it. My first priority in this budget is to balance the books, and to do so for the first time in ten years. What that means, roughly speaking, is for the first time in ten years the amount that we take in in terms of revenue will match what goes out in spending. That is the prudent thing to do. I am pleased to hear that the party opposite, Fianna Fáil, support that. I would like to hear from Sinn Féin as to whether it will also support our policy of balancing the books and doing so for the first time because that is the prudent thing to do and that is the thing that matters most for children because they are the ones who bear the consequences in the future of bad economic policy and they are the ones who would bear the consequence of us continuing to increase our debt.

We are not going to do that. We are going to balance the books and reduce the debt. That is the right thing to do for families and particularly for children. They are the ones who bear the long-term consequences of bad economic policies.

Our second priority is additional funding for public services and infrastructure. We anticipate spending increases of between €1.5 billion and €2 billion next year. Most of that is down to demographics. Most of it is commitments already made. There will not be huge scope for additional announcements on budget day but there will still be a significant increase in public spending next year, to improve public services and infrastructure. After that, we will find some space to improve the take-home pay and living standards of people in Ireland who go to work, namely, the 1.4 million taxpayers. I think they deserve something because it is the work they do and the taxes they pay that allow everything else to be possible.

In terms of what we have done for families - I am not just talking about Fine Gael here - successive Governments of Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, the Labour Party and Independents have brought child benefit to one of the highest rates in Europe. We brought in a free pre-school year and then brought in a second one. We increased the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance by 25% in the most recent summer period. For the first time, we brought in subsidies for child care, which took effect in September. The Minister, Deputy Katherine Zappone, who is in the Chamber, led the initiative on that. We also brought in GP care without any charge for children aged under six. We are going to build on that as well. That is just by way of example of the kind of things that every other party in this House has done for young families. What has Sinn Féin ever done for young families?

I have raised one.

The Deputy should tell me what her party has ever actually done for young families. I see around me Deputies from Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, the Labour Party, Independents, and the Green Party who can all say that they did something practical and useful for young people. When Deputy McDonald says she has made a choice and that she stands with young families, that is totally bogus. Sinn Féin made a choice to opt out of Government. It does not want to be in government here. Its MPs do not want to take their seats at Westminster. It does not want to be in government in Northern Ireland, or at least it appears that way. In local authorities, its councillors take decisions all the time that are not in the interests of the public but are just populist. In fact, Sinn Féin is the only party in this House that has never done anything for children.

For the record of the Dáil, I am actually raising two young children. While I regard that as something of a personal endeavour, it also puts me, like so many others, in a position to understand that all of the cant and empty rhetoric about balancing the books is not worth a fig to struggling families. To couples at work or individuals on their own who have to provide care for their children, lofty words about balancing the books from An Taoiseach in that dismissive way are of no use. Children are all too familiar with the hardship of the messed up economic policies that the Taoiseach and his friends have pursued. Hundreds of them are now in emergency accommodation courtesy of those economic endeavours.

I asked the Taoiseach a question and expect a response to it. I have said that we need to increase funding and that we need to do so in such a way as to put an additional €420 a month into the pockets of struggling families. It should be done through the universal child care subsidy. The resources are there. We have the fiscal space. In a full year, our proposal would cost the Exchequer €116 million. I cannot imagine a better spend of that sum.

With all due respect to the Taoiseach, he should answer the questions. He should not dream of attacking us on the basis of our care or otherwise for children. Given the record of his Government and successive Governments, he has considerable neck to advance that position.

The only answer I can give to the Deputy with regard to any budgetary decision between now and budget day is that announcements will be made on budget day.

It will be somebody else's problem then.

That will be the answer I will give her to any question she may wish to ask between now and budget day. We will use the budget to put money back in the pockets of families.

They will put €5 on the pension.

There are many ways that can be done. It can be done through tax reductions, welfare increases, pay restoration or a combination of these things. It can also be done through services. The Deputy can be guaranteed that, just as was the case last year and the year before, we will use this budget as an opportunity to put money back in the pockets of the families of this country. However, we will do so in a sustainable way. There is no point in giving something to families now only to take it away in a few years' time.

I have to say I am a keen observer of politics. More and more, Deputy McDonald reminds me of-----

The Taoiseach is an observer all right.

I thought the Taoiseach was a practitioner of politics.

I am a practitioner and an observer.

I thought he was on the pitch.

Simon and others have been saying for the past couple of years that the Taoiseach is just an observer.

Even though their politics are totally different, Deputy McDonald reminds me more and more of Marine Le Pen because she always goes back to her script. She delivers a scripted question and when I give her an answer and ask her a question, she goes straight back to the script again.

The Taoiseach should not be elevating her.

I do not think that is the kind of leadership we need in this country.