There are many ways to provide for young families and working parents; and it is time for men to join in the struggle for change, writes Gemma Hussey.
There was a time when the current debate in Ireland about "the childcare crisis" simply couldn't have happened. Until the 1970s many women were required to give up their jobs if they got married. (I came into that category - and started my own business instead.) If they were allowed to stay on, or came back as widows, their pay was lower - or, like the offer made to me, they were in a strictly "temporary" capacity at lower pay.
The question of who was minding the children did not form part of public policy. You never saw a pregnant woman in the public service - if she was still working, she was out of sight. Women were at home, legally unprotected, unable to control their fertility, and kept out of any position of power. It was a profligate waste of talent.
While this was going on in Ireland, arrangements were being made for women in workforces across western Europe. The women's movements worked with governments to design child-centred systems which would allow parents to enjoy their children's early years, without having to make the choices facing Irish women today.
Small classes in schools, pleasant living conditions, after-school activities and homework, and above all flexibility and parental leave while the children are young: it was - and is - a joined-up policy.
The parents are joint stake-holders with Government and employers to achieve a stress-free, flourishing environment for children.
High taxation pays for high-quality social services. In the countries with the best provisions, women play an almost equal role in public and political life.
By contrast, in the Soviet empire, everyone was made to work - no choices. Women, after some maternity leave, had to put their children in state-run nurseries and worked full-time.
Living conditions were harsh, ordinary goods and groceries scarce; life was a grim cycle. Up at crack of dawn, get the children to creche, queue for meagre food, work all day, queue again, collect children, do housework in tiny concrete block apartments without any labour-saving machines, fall into bed and start all over again.
Men played no part in the domestic grind. Everyone was paid the same low wage, no incentives existed, and the economies simply stagnated. The birth rate fell catastrophically, and remains so in countries like Lithuania, Poland and the Czech Republic.
When I started working in post-communist eastern Europe in the early 1990s, women described their lives under that system with bitterness, and envied western women.
Now, in transition, they face a new kind of problem - virtual collapse of the state nursery system, unemployment, and uncertainty. Some of them look back with nostalgia to the old days. At least they knew what was going to happen, day in, day out.
Fast forward to this surprising Ireland on the brink of 2006. How we've changed in a generation! A lively women's movement, along with our membership of the EU, began to transform life for women from the mid- 1970s onwards. Fundamental rights were wrested from a reluctant establishment.
The economy, however, was much slower to change, as many politicians strove to stay in power and avoided difficult decisions. No one foresaw that just around the corner lurked the Celtic Tiger with its voracious appetite for new workers.
As a result of defective planning - transport, building land development and therefore housing, health services, family support services - the new workers of today face all sorts of difficulties.
In particular, parents of young children who are a growing and essential part of the workforce, are caught in a trap. Many of them have to commute huge distances on defective road networks; creche and nursery facilities are haphazard and expensive; Ireland gives minimal allowances in terms of maternity and paternity leave (the recent improvements are only a step).
We are serving our young families, especially our children, very badly. And women's income is still only 65 per cent of men's.
What's to be done? The old Irish answer is "Well, if I were you, I wouldn't start from here". But we are where we are. It has to be done in many different ways. Women out at work should be allowed to treat their child-minding employee as a tax-allowable expense just like small businesses. (This would also have the advantage of bringing large numbers out of the black economy.)
There should be high-quality subsidised creche facilities (you pay according to your means) as part of any growing new residential area, and established also in areas where currently they don't exist.
Work-hours flexibility, including shorter days, should be available for mothers or fathers until children are at least six or seven.
Women should have much more generous paid maternity leave, with optional add-ons until children are ready for nursery schools. School buildings - that resource provided by the taxpayer - should remain open, with meals and activities, including homework, available for children of working parents.
None of these suggestions is in any way revolutionary. They are all designed so that well-adjusted children are happy, and stress-free parents have real choices.
Why aren't we making civilised provision for working parents? Despite some effort, the fire seems to have gone out of the Irish women's movement.
This is seen most dramatically in our pathetically low percentage of women in politics. We're stalled at 13 per cent.
At the top of all the power groups in society, the same is true - trade unions, the professions, State boards and commissions (all the targets missed). It is generally considered that the "critical mass" of women needed in politics for change to happen is 30 per cent. Where is that "lively, sparkling anger" which Margaret MacCurtain (Sr Ben) urged on us in the 1970s?
Major gains for women and men were made in the past by determined people showing the way in difficult and controversial debates.
We need a renewed impetus, which must come now from men as well as women. It should no longer be left to women only. Is there anyone ready to lead?
Gemma Hussey is director of the European Women's Foundation and a former minister for education