Labour set to unveil childcare strategy

THE Labour Party will publish a major childcare policy document within a matter of weeks, leader Pat Rabbitte promised yesterday.

The childcare strategy, one of Labour's central election platforms, will include proposals aimed at parents, including one year's paid parental leave and a year's free pre-school education. The package will also include measures to tackle the spiralling cost of childcare, the lack of childcare places and proposals to ensure the quality of childcare is acceptable.

Although he has refused to outline Labour's tax policy until closer to any election, Mr Rabbitte promised to unveil the childcare policy in the next three to four weeks. Speaking at Labour's parliamentary party meeting in Clonmel yesterday, Mr Rabbitte said childcare was just one of a number of quality of life issues Labour would be focusing on in the forthcoming Dáil term.

"You would get the impression from this Government that everybody is living in a land of milk and honey, that everybody is making a fortune out of property investment, that everybody owns racehorses and so on. It isn't like that. A very great many of our people are finding it difficult to make ends meet in a very high-cost society where they are paying more for childcare, if they can get it, than they are for their mortgage," he said.

"This is the reality of the lives of ordinary people and it's about time that the Government ministers engaged on these real issues."

Yesterday's meeting also saw Labour deputies agree to focus attention on the Government's catalogue of health failures, the accountability of the gardaí and the lack of social housing.

"People are very concerned about the deterioration in the quality of life that they enjoy ... and it is on those quality of life issues that we will be campaigning. The pressures on people, the stresses and strains in the kind of society we have created are not compatible with our wealth as an economy and that will be our focus," he said.

Responding to Fianna Fáil's intention to also use childcare as an election platform, Senator Kathleen O'Meara, who chaired Labour's childcare policy group, accused the Government of using the issue as a political football.

"Fianna Fáil now think it politically imperative to be seen to respond to the childcare crisis. Labour will welcome any effort that is made to ameliorate the pressure on the tens of thousands of families and children affected by this issue. But of one thing we should be clear. Budget day stunts are no substitute for a coherent and integrated childcare strategy," she said.

Mr Rabbitte said the party has taken heart from an Irish Examiner opinion poll published yesterday which showed support for an alternative government has grown. Although Labour's vote has increased by just one point to 12% since 2002 - and is actually slightly down when compared to a similar poll earlier this year - Mr Rabbitte said he took "great encouragement" from the results.

"I think the (Irish Examiner) poll, like recent polls, confirms the contest is neck and neck between the two alternative governments. When we have an opportunity to step up our campaign.... we (will) have a very real prospect of putting Labour at the heart of government and addressing policy issues that we want to see addressed," he said.

These included providing "a more fair and equitable tax system and more equal access to health and education", and dealing with "the public housing crisis".