Social Enterprise Sector
Dail Éireann — 2026-07-14
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Jerry Buttimer (FG), Cork South-Central

I understand where the Deputy is coming from. I genuinely do. Empower is the community childcare provider in her area. It does phenomenal work. As the Deputy knows, SICAP does not directly provide that community childcare place. I am meeting John Logue and Richard Bruton from Social Enterprise Republic of Ireland, SERI, next week to have a conversation with them in terms of this piece. I will pose the question in a rhetorical and adversarial way right now. What is the community childcare committee doing in the case of Fingal? I will just ask that question. If we look at the overarching scenario, to be fair to the Minister, Deputy Calleary, and the Department of Social Protection and the Taoiseach and his Department, we are putting child poverty and its elimination and reduction at the heart of government. I was in Drogheda yesterday where I had a very profound conversation with women there in terms of the whole piece around childcare and poverty. The important point for us is that we are working in a whole-of-government way in assisting local communities in a variety of ways. I know the Deputy might disagree with me, which is fair enough. I get that we need to do more around childcare and particularly that community piece.

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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