Covid-19 (Children and Youth Affairs): Statements Dail Éireann — 2020-05-20 ============================================================ Frankie Feighan (FG), Sligo-Leitrim I begin by thanking the Minister, as a former Senator and Deputy, for her vocation and her political and social leadership. She has been a vision for equality and social change and has fought hard to reduce poverty. It has been very difficult for Ministers who lost their seats to carry on so I thank her very much. I agree with other Deputies who spoke about mental health and young people. It is a deeply concerning area, and while I acknowledge that the Minister has addressed it, I want to share in the thoughts of many of my colleagues in the House. Many of my constituents have talked about the SIPTU childcare model. It is a big start to be introduced by the next Government. I refer to a public model for childcare and high quality, affordable early years and school-age services. Will the Minister share her thoughts on the proposal? --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2020-05-20/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:48:18+00:00 Sitting date: 2020-05-20