Social Enterprise Sector
Dail Éireann — 2026-07-14
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Louise O'Reilly (SF), Dublin Fingal West

Well, just design a programme that will do that because there is a really serious and pressing need for it. I will give the Minister of State an example. In the area known as Fingal, where my constituency is located, there are 63,000 children. Of those, 15,000 are living in poverty or are at risk of it. There are 800 community childcare places. I know from talking to the people on the community childcare committees that they are not hung up on any particular way to fund this. I am continuously struck by the capacity that exists within the social enterprise sector to do that really valuable work. The CSO statistics released in the last fortnight show that unemployment among women aged 35 to 44 has doubled. The rate is still low but it is increasing.
There is a real need for affordable childcare. The Government does not seem to be getting any closer to delivering the €200 per week childcare it promised. The way to do it is to engage with social enterprises.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-07-14/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:08+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-14