There should be a legal right to two years [1] of ‘Early Child Care and Education’ (ECCE), the children’s minister has said. Despite voters overwhelmingly opting to keep the ‘mother-in-the-home’ provision in the Constitution last March, he did not offer any additional support to stay-at-home mothers.
A survey from a few years ago found that only 17pc of parents wanted day-care for their children [2] under the age of five, while 49pc of respondents preferred to mind their offspring at home and another 27pc preferred a family member to do so.
Yet, on Thursday, Roderic O’Gorman said he wanted to ensure access to day-care for every child in every part of the country and added that the State needs to be “taking a greater role in the actual delivery of childcare services”.
He said: “I believe there should be a legal right to the two years of ECCE for every child, that should be down there as a statutory entitlement in the same way you have a legal right to go primary school.”
The Green Party leader also expressed support for increasing pay for childcare professionals.
It comes as the Government announced that new State subsidies for institutional childcare will come into effect on Monday.