If we have a public model of childcare that includes early education and after-school care, it will deliver affordability for parents and families and will give sustainability to providers, but it will also give quality for children and staff. Families now pay 36% less for early learning and childcare than they did in 2022.
Now that I have two boys who are five and three I feel like I am an expert on childcare, the cost of childcare and, particularly, the thing I learned very quickly, childcare providers. This includes parents paying no more than €200 per month for early learning and childcare, and early learning educators and school-age childcare practitioners being paid at a level that reflects the importance of their work.
Key terms by TF-IDF across 5,828 words from 13 speakers. The summary quotes the highest-scoring sentences verbatim — nothing is paraphrased.
Tellers: Tá, Senators Garret Ahearn and Paul Daly; Níl, Senators Pauline Tully and Nicole Ryan.
| Question | Result | Tá–Níl |
|---|---|---|
| Amendment put: | Carried | 22–11 |
Party shown is the one each member held on 2025-10-21, frozen by a dated join — not their party today. The Oireachtas API publishes no date of birth and returns an empty gender field for every member in this period, so no age or gender breakdown is shown.