Childcare: Motion Seanad Éireann — 2026-09-23 ============================================================ Alison Comyn (FF), Nominated by the Taoiseach I thank the Minister for coming to address what is one of the most vital and urgent issues we have. I welcome the motion and support it wholeheartedly. As one of my colleagues said, childcare is not simply a service we provide to parents; it is what allows people to work. It allows people to build careers and gives children a strong start in life to flourish. For generations of women in particular, it has often determined whether they could stay in the workplace. I know that because I was one of those women. When my two children were very small, I had to make a conscious decision to have two children because I knew if I had more, keeping the career I worked so hard to build would become almost impossible. The childcare bill I paid every month, like many others, was higher than my mortgage. I recall earning that salary and watching such a huge portion of it disappearing every month on childcare. Peter Pan Crèche in Drogheda was worth every penny. The staff were amazing, but I also know what that childcare gave me. It gave me the ability to keep working and progressing. It gave me so many opportunities and the ability to have a career while being a mother. Ultimately, it helped me to get where I am today, standing in the Chamber with the privilege and honour of using my voice to fight for other families who are trying to do exactly the same thing. When we talk about childcare policy, we should not ever forget that there is human story behind every single place. I am thinking of some of the mums I have spoken to in Louth and whether they are going back to work. They are wondering whether they can go back to work and whether it makes financial sense, while the dads are rearranging shifts because the crèche cannot offer it the hours they need. There is also the lone parent who simply cannot afford to take a job in the first place without reliable childcare or even the parents who are currently working but whose children should have the opportunity to benefit from early learning, interaction and care. That is why childcare can only be seen as something that allows parents to go to work. It is part of the fabric of the infrastructure of a modern society. Most importantly, it should be about choice. If a parent chooses to return to work, childcare should be available and affordable. If a parent is studying, retraining, or looking for work, or simply needs support, it should be available, if a family chooses not to use formal childcare, that should be their choice as well. Our job is not to tell families how to raise their children. Our job, ultimately, is to make sure that a lack of affordable childcare does not make that decision for them. We have made huge progress, as we have heard. Investment has increased substantially. Parents' costs have fallen and we are investing directly and heavily in additional capacity. As everyone in this Chamber knows, however, the job is certainly not finished. We all hear about families throughout the country desperately searching for places. Parents are still looking at childcare costs and wondering how the sums can simply add up. There are still excellent early years educators whom we need to recruit, retain and properly value. Let us be honest: we know that they are not just babysitters; they are skilled professionals who are caring for our children during some of the most formative years of their lives. The ambition in this motion is really clear. We must continue reducing costs and increasing quality places and move toward a maximum childcare cost of €200 a month per child during the lifetime of the Government. I do not want another generation of women sitting at kitchen tables calculating whether they can afford to go back to work or deciding how many children they can afford to have, depending on childcare. It simply might not add up. I do not want any other parent locked out of work or education opportunities because there are no childcare spaces available for them. I was fortunate in that I had childcare. It was painfully expensive, but it allowed me to continue the career that I love. We hear about families desperately searching for places. We have to make sure, for generations of women to come, and now, that there is affordable, quality and available childcare for all. I wholeheartedly support this motion. --- 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/seanad/2026-09-23/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:49+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-09-23