Childcare: Motion
Seanad Éireann — 2026-09-23
============================================================

Margaret Murphy O'Mahony (FF), Labour Panel

I thank the Minister of State for coming in this evening. I acknowledge the great work done by her and the Minister, Deputy Foley. I am a great believer in parental choice. I believe that if parents want to go out to work, they should be able to. If one of them wants to stay at home, they should be in a position to do that. If one of them wants to go onto further education, they should be in a position to do that. It is a sad state of affairs if childcare is preventing them from making a choice that suits them. I would like to thank everyone for their contributions here this evening. Everyone made very valid points and, going forward, there is a lot done, a lot more to do, to coin our own phrase.
Childcare is so important. These children are our future so it is important that in their formative years they are well looked after and they gain confidence and a zest for life and are given every opportunity. I ask the Minister of State to make sure that in the upcoming budget there will be big changes in our childcare system.

---

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