Irish Examiner View: Childcare reformed, but sadly not transformed

Describing the new funding scheme for childcare as a “roadmap for really transformational change” grossly overstates its effects.

Employees of the childcare sector protesting in Dublin earlier this year.

On September 10, 1966, the Fianna Fáil education minister, Donogh O’Malley, famously made his unauthorised speech announcing plans for free second-level education. It was a courageous and radical move that took the Cabinet — and the country — by surprise.

It is now widely seen as a milestone in Irish history, an initiative that transformed the country culturally, socially, and economically.