Paul Murphy urges fully public free childcare in Budget

I want to know whether you are going to significantly increase the monthly rate of child benefit in the budget to help families struggling with the cost of living and also whether you are going to help parents out by funding childcare properly. I was outside, thousands of people protesting as a graphic illustration that the government's policy of relying on the private sector to provide quality, affordable childcare has utterly failed. It is a failure for parents who pay some of the highest childcare fees in Europe. It is a failure for childcare workers who are still being paid poverty wages by private childcare operators. It is a failure for many small operators who are struggling to make ends meet, while big change like Giraffe and Safari have been raking in millions even during the pandemic. This has to stop. So, Taoiseach, will you commit to fully publicly funding childcare by abolishing childcare fees in the budget, increasing childcare workers' wages by at least €2 an hour as a step towards pay scales on par with teachers, and moving towards a fully publicly owned free national childcare service? I just want to thank the deputies for their questions. As I think deputies will know, in relation to employees in general, we have a set of minimum terms and conditions that apply to all employees. They have been improved in recent years, the move to the living wage, for example, more employment regulation orders, particularly in the private sector, sick pay, the introduction of which I was pleased to be very involved in as Minister of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and also the expansion of things like parental leave. There is an issue around bogus self-employment. It is difficult to know how common bogus self-employment is. It certainly exists. We do have a scope section, obviously, in the Department of Social Protection. There is a role to play in that, as do the Revenue Commissioners, too. In relation to fixed-term contracts in the audiovisual sector, I do not know enough about that to give the deputy a proper response, but I will certainly prepare a response that is a bit more detailed for the deputy. One thing I do agree with them on is that the film and video sector does get a lot of support, sometimes direct grants from government, from Screen Ireland, from the Arts Council, a lot through various different tax incentives as well, and it is important that they treat their staff and their contractors decently, in my view. I know there are allegations of blackballing. I am sure it does happen. I imagine something that is very hard to prove, and I am not sure what suggestions have come from the report. I have no chance to read it with regard to that, but I know Minister Martin will take an interest in it, and I will certainly let her know that it was raised here. In relation to the reform of the TV licence, I just want to clarify that while anyone is entitled to have their opinions on this, including government ministers, there has been no decision made on this by government. I think we need to grasp the issue of funding, RT and public service broadcasting and media more generally. Decisions on that have been deferred down the years for lots of different reasons, good and bad. But I do want us to agree on a new system within the next few months, legislate for it in 2024, and ideally have it up and running in 2025. I have said that before. There are different options. One is exchequer funding coming from central taxation. That has its advantages. I know a lot of people would welcome not having to pay the TV licence every year, but ultimately somebody has to pay, and if it comes out of exchequer funds, it is still the taxpayer that is paying. I think there would be concerns about the power the executive would then have in terms of cutting funding and so on. I know people suggest that an independent commission would decide how much should be provided every year. I just do not think that would work. Inevitably, independent commissions or independent bodies that recommend a certain amount of government funding do so in isolation. They do not have to make the trade-offs on the kind of decisions that we have to make as politicians when the amount recommended by every group or expert simply does not add up to the amount that is available. The other option which has been discussed is a household charge that would be device independent. I think that would be fraught with difficulty. As somebody who has been involved in introducing new taxes, it is never an easy thing to do. Sometimes you are successful, sometimes you are not. I am not a big fan of taxes or new taxes for that matter. I think that would be a difficult one to go for. I am absolutely certain that if that option were chosen, we would have to continue to exempt a very large number of households, as is the case now, particularly pensioners and people on social welfare, for example. Deputy Murphy asked about the budget. I appreciate the right of deputies to ask me about what is going to be in the budget. I cannot answer because I do not know yet. It is not agreed. It is still under negotiation between ministers and has not been presented to government as yet. Whether it is child benefit or childcare fees, any announcement on that will be made in the budget on Budget Day by Ministers McGrath and Ministers Donoghue. What I can say is that child poverty and wellbeing will be a theme in the budget. I have made that commitment as Taoiseach and we will be looking at a number of different measures that we can introduce that will reduce child poverty and improve child wellbeing and they can be across different areas, education, social protection, etc. and we are working on that package at the moment. Thank you very much.