Childcare Services
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-23
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Daniel Ennis (SD), Dublin Central

I take on board what the Minister is saying. I do not hold out much hope. Time and again, the Government has treated childcare as an afterthought. As a father of two, this is something I live with every day. Childcare costs are crippling families. I knocked on close to 40,000 doors, and it came up quite a lot. We were not seeing it much in representations or emails, but it certainly came up in the one-to-one conversations. The Government has failed so many times in respect of this promise. We are talking about getting costs down. We are a long way from the €200 per month cap. The average cost of childcare is €850 per month. Ireland is an outlier in Europe. We are not moving quick enough with this. I hope to see this happening sharpish. Working with the Minister on the committee, we hope to do that. I do not hold out much hope, however. That was a promise before the election that I was hoping would be delivered for my family and many others. This problem is not just in Dublin Central, it is right across the country. Families are crippled.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-06-23/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:06+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-23