Labour Women launch Equal Early Years campaign

Today Labour Women launch our Equal Early Years campaign, calling for universal childcare in Ireland.

The campaign has three core aims:

• Affordability for Parents,
• Equality for Children and
• Fairness for Professionals.

The broken childcare system in Ireland is a huge issue at the moment. For years now Labour has called for greater public investment, expansion of the community creche model, fairer wages for early years’ professionals and a fair start for all children.

You can tune into the launch on our Instagram account (@labourwomenireland) at 3pm.

We want our campaign to reach as many people as possible and we need your help!

Here are some ways in which you can support the campaign:

• Share your support

You can find graphics which details the core aims of our campaign here, here, here and here.

We are asking members to share any of these graphics along with a sentence or two explaining why you support the campaign on your social media accounts, like Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. You can begin it with „I am supporting #EqualEarlyYears because….

• Read our campaign outline on our website equalearlyyears.com.

• Join our Facebook live on the Labour Women Facebook page on Wednesday 6th October at 8pm. We will be having a panel discussion chaired by Labour Women member Amy Greer Murphy.

National Childcare Scheme Protest

Senator Marie Sherlock is organising a protest on Tuesday October 5th at 11am to demand immediate changes to the new National Childcare Scheme to ensure no child is left behind. Every child deserves a fair chance at life, but under the new scheme, only children whose parents are in work can avail of creche or aftercare. We need to reverse this and ensure that every child has an equal start.

Many of the families directly affected by this change live in very challenging situations – addiction, mental health, cramped accommodation. The creche or afterschool plays a vital part in providing stability and reassurance in the child’s life.

Children’s needs must be put at the heart of any childcare scheme, irrespective of their parent’s circumstances. Any basic understanding of long term joblessness and the situations that these families find themselves in means that that assurance of affordable childcare support has to be in place first, before parents can go job seeking.

Join Marie on Tuesday at 11am at the gates of Leinster House or tweet your support. No child should be left behind.

Thank you for your support!

In solidarity

Ellen O’Sullivan
Chair, Labour Women