The Labour Party's new childcare policy, due to be launched shortly, will include extra parental leave and a year's free pre-school for every child.
Acknowledging that childcare will be one of the key issues in the next election, Senator Kathleen O'Meara said Labour has five ambitions.
Parents should have more time with their children, while childcare services should be affordable, available and of high quality.
"Childcare will be top of the political agenda in the coming months. Having tried to ignore the childcare crisis for years, Fianna Fáil have finally woken up," she said.
Parents should be able to share a full year's paid parental leave, while they should also have the right to part-time work and career breaks.
The party's policy document has been in gestation for several years, though Labour is struggling to satisfy the demands of stay-at-home parents, and those in work.
"Those who want to stay at home don't want to be penalised for it, and want to be compensated, while those who do go out to work want to be better off for having done so, as well as having childcare," one party figure said privately to The Irish Times.
Labour will oppose any system based entirely on tax-breaks, since this would benefit only those in work, and, disproportionately, higher-income earners.
In her speech to Labour's autumnal gathering in Clonmel, Senator O'Meara said the childcare crisis was driven home to Fianna Fáil during the byelections in Meath and Kildare this year.
"The message at the doorsteps there was unmistakeable. Nowhere is the chasm between our economic success and the pressures in our society more evident," she declared.
Each child should have a free pre-school place for a year: "There is ample evidence that tells us that pre-school education is good for children.
"Educational problems can be picked up and addressed, quite naturally, in a manner which will reduce the cost of later interventions."
However, she continued: "Childcare is not just an economic issue. It is not just about cost, and the problem of expensive childcare for parents out of the workforce - important issues though those are.
"What we are debating, and what our country must debate, is the very nature of how we care for our children," she said.
But Labour would avoid prescriptive orders to parents: "Labour starts with the core belief that parents are the best people to judge what is best for their child.
"It will always be a matter for parents themselves to judge how best to bring up their children, and how to balance family and work," she told colleagues on day two of the conference.
