New parents are in a catch-22 situation. The flat rate, per-week payment for maternity, paternity and parent's benefits makes extended leave unaffordable for many families, although it has improved. The reality is that they have no option but to go back to work to cover the costs of rent or mortgages or the cost of living. They then need childcare. Baby rooms in childcare services should be the solution but, since the introduction of core funding, the number of baby rooms across the State has dropped by 25% and by a whopping 35% in my own county of Fingal. Parents are in a catch-22 situation. They have no option other than to go back to work but the childcare is not there. We need a joined-up review of early years policy and family supports to relieve pressure on parents. We need that quickly so that we have the findings for budget 2027. There are policy solutions out there, including better supports for providers of baby rooms, pay-related benefits and the inclusion of children under one in the State-led facilities because, at the moment, the reference is to those aged from one to three.

As always, I want to thank Deputy Currie for the very constructive suggestions she makes constantly with regard to childcare and how we support parents, particularly with the early years. We have done a lot in relation to parental entitlements in recent years, including extending the parent's benefit to nine weeks. That is available for both parents now although the figure is still significantly lower for men. However, we are all living in the real world in terms of our interactions with people and we know that for young people who are paying a mortgage or whatever else, it might not be financially viable for them to take that leave, even though they want to. Government policy wants to help people be able to spend as much of the first year with their newborn as they can and divide that up in a way that works for the family but sometimes there is still a financial viability gap. The Deputy is right that the programme for Government commits to examining pay-related parent's benefit. We have pay-related benefit for people who lose their jobs. We introduced that last April and it is working well. We need to take the learnings from that and see whether they can be applied to other areas, including in relation to parent's benefit. I am happy to raise that matter, as well as the other constructive suggestions the Deputy has made, with the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality, Deputy Foley, the Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Calleary, and more broadly across government.