RTÉ reported this morning that nearly 1,000 early year childcare services have closed since 2019. I know that 579 have opened, but there is still a deficit of 400. There are 40,000 children on waiting lists for childcare places. There is an absolute need for investment in this sector. Providers are saying that their costs are increasing. We know inflation is increasing and that the cost of everything is going up. Yet, Government funding is not going up by anything near what is needed. Staff are receiving improved pay, which I welcome. There was a promise of €10 per child for the cost of childcare in the budget, but this still has not been implemented. I do not want to see costs rising for parents, but providers are actually opting out of receiving core funding in order that they can increase fees. They need to do that to stay in business, but it is putting an additional burden on parents whose finances already stretched and who are reporting that if they have two or three children, they are spending one entire wage on childcare alone.

In recent days, approval was granted for a State-led early learning and childcare investment programme by means of which the State will acquire vacant buildings. That is to be welcomed, but who is going to run these facilities? We need to put resources into them. Many private childcare operators are not interested in this sector. We need to see more investment in community facilities and we need to ensure that they are run as community childcare and early learning facilities.

One parent was in touch with me recently. Her daughter has been 19 months on a waiting list to get a place in a crèche. Other children are jumping the queue because they already having siblings in the crèche in question. That obviously makes sense because you want to keep siblings together. It still does not help the parent to whom I refer, whose child has been waiting 19 months for a place and for whom there is no end in sight. She is dropping down the list rather than climbing it due to siblings jumping the queue. I would really like another debate on childcare, on how this new scheme is actually going to work and on the projected increase in the number of childcare places.