According to data from the Department of children, there has been a 25% reduction in the number of State-supported crèches taking babies under one year of age since 2022. Baby rooms in crèches outside of core funding are not subject to fee caps, meaning parents are likely paying over and above for services they are desperate to secure. These are damning figures and should be a wake-up call to those who constructed core funding and batted off questions last year, insisting supply of places was broadly meeting demand. These figures reflect the reality for parents. Mothers start to look for baby rooms in early pregnancy, delay their return to work and leave work as a result.

In Ireland in 2025, mothers are still penalised. They face a 27% earnings drop after their first baby is born, according to research from Maynooth University. Mothers should not be penalised. The Government must intervene to address the sharp decline in baby rooms in State-backed crèches, which encompass 92% of crèches in the country.

I thank Deputy Currie very much for raising this issue and for the focus she rightly keeps on early learning and childcare. I thank her for her work in that regard. Certainly, we will discuss this with the Minister, Deputy Foley. The Government will be publishing an action plan on childcare, which endeavours to knit together the 21 programme for Government commitments on childcare. I expect that to happen in the coming weeks, either just before or, perhaps more likely, just after the budget.

I wish to make one broad point that is slightly linked. While I fully accept the point about baby rooms and the need for us to do more in that regard, I am also proud of a number of the steps we have taken to help parents have more time with their child in that first year. Obviously, we know babies benefit most from individual attention from loving and responding caregivers, enabling them to form strong bonds and foster that parent-child relationship. I am pleased that the combination of maternity, paternity and parent’s leave and parent's benefit now equates to 46 weeks’ paid leave for a two-parent family. This is supplemented by an entitlement to 16 weeks of unpaid maternity leave and 26 weeks of unpaid parental leave for a parent, as well as annual leave entitlements. I wish to provide that context of the importance of the child’s first year of life.