Fianna Fáil needs to grasp childcare challenge

POLITICS has a rhythm every autumn. Each party has a think-in, the Dáil and Seanad return and the Budget goes into planning, the results of which we will see on Tuesday when there will be direct interventions to help households, farming and business with the new exceptional costs environment.

This autumn is a little different though. For the first time in the 100-year history of the State, we will have a change of Taoiseach mid-term, with the role changing from Fianna Fáil to Fine Gael. In advance of that momentous event in December, this autumn will have a defining moment for Fianna Fáil – its Ard Fheis where the party has the chance next month in advance of the handover of power to get its identity clearer.

This Ard Fheis, like this autumn, will be one like no other. The party conference will have to be seen as the moment Fianna Fáil sets about distinguishing itself with clearly defined objectives that signify a new intent on convincing the electorate of a new approach, new dynamism and new commitment.

In my own view, Fianna Fáil has an identity challenge. Sitting in the middle of Government with Fine Gael and the Greens, it finds itself squeezed to have a distinct identity. If not addressed, it creates a terminal problem for the party. Politics is about policies, priorities and taking action.

I have written before that it is not the first time in Fianna Fáil’s history that it has an identity issue. At the outset when the mould of Irish politics was being formed at the foundation of the State, the new Fianna Fáil set out simple objectives to mark itself out. Those aims were unity; to make the wealth of the nation work for the people; that Ireland would be economically selfcontained and self-sufficing; to establish as many families as practicable on the land; to promote the ruralisation of industries as opposed to their concentration in the cities; to restore the Irish language; and to implement the left-leaning democratic programme of the then First Dáil.

In the 1960s too, Fianna Fáil faced identity issues. As a traditional party, modernity was staring it in the face but it was holding on to the past. Lemass realised this and looked to international investment as the future for our island. Donogh O’Malley, the rugby-playing Minister for Education, kicked the ball well into the air when he pushed Fianna Fáil into backing free education. It was a seismic decision for a not-very-wealthy State but it has shaped the nation for the better.

Fianna Fáil needs to again be radical not redundant. And that’s where the Ard Fheis comes in.

Because of Covid, it will be Fianna Fáil’s first in-person major event in three years, a gap that has had a terrible impact on morale in the party. This 80th

Ard Fheis will take place in Dublin and will bring the party together to debate ideas face to face, with the passion and honesty only a live event can bring.

The agenda for the Ard Fheis will include all the issues of our time: cost of living, the war in Ukraine, energy security, Covid and pandemics, other health issues, waiting lists, housing, climate change and science, just transition, rural Ireland’s future, reunification of our shared island and a host of others.

As well as all these issues, one motion I will be pressing most strongly is a motion on childcare.

In my view, childcare is one of the great bottlenecks and retarders of our country. It is a crisis for families, for single parents, for employers, for society. For too long we have been tinkering around the edges of it rather than grasping the challenge. I believe we need to do as Donogh O Malley did in the 1960s and go for a State-based system of free childcare and free pre-school education. It will be good for children, good for families, good for employers and good for our society. It will not be without its challenges and its costs but in my view it will be worth it.

The first step would be to develop a State-based model so everyone can see what that looks like. It would involve consultations with the existing providers, working towards their incorporation into a national model, recognising their qualifications and achieving a parity with teachers, and working out arrangements on premises and policies.

And the arrival of many Ukrainians gives us a unique opportunity to deliver it quickly. In a symbiotic moment, it will give us the opportunity to give them good State-based employment and a means to care for their children as well as our own, while once and for all tackling this issue that has been bounced around by governments since the 1990s. That’s why I will be proposing this motion for the Ard Fheis and I hope my colleagues will take this leap into the future.