Jillian van Turnhout (Independent) | Oireachtas source

In preparation for today's meeting I re-watched "A Breach of Trust" to remind myself of its content. The issues of training, management and culture were absolutely central to what we saw. I welcome the training fund and the mentoring scheme the Minister is proposing. It is really important to have consistency in that respect. Deputy Catherine Byrne asked earlier about people who have been in services for a long time but have not availed of training. If there is a genuine resistance to training, we may reach a critical point. We are putting so much training on offer that the message must go out that we have an expectation that such people will be trained. Ongoing training is required. We have seen many people with 20 years service in child care who have not received training, but that would not be accepted in other professions.

While it is positive to link inspections to registration, I am concerned about ensuring ongoing quality within a child care setting. There are different angles on inspections about which I have concerns. The first is consistency and that people should know what they are being inspected on, so that there is guidance for staff. Anecdotally, I have heard different things from different staff. An inspector may ask one question in one child care setting, but a different question in another setting. Inspectors may also ask for things that are not within the remit of the inspections, but everybody wants to be fully compliant. It is important to give staff guidance on what can be expected from an inspection so they can ensure that they reach those qualities.

In addition, parents should know what they can interpret from the reports. The delays in Garda vetting were raised but we know that some services will be rendered non-compliant for something like that which is totally outside their control. Conflicting advice is being given to services, especially concerning how they should handle the confidentiality issue of students and Garda vetting. We therefore need to give clear advice on that issue.

There are also issues arising for different child care settings. When we talk about child care costs everybody thinks it is a great money-making business but it is not, given some of the books l have seen on people's operations. This is certainly the case for those operating the free preschool scheme where the ratios, space and contact hours are set. They do not get paid for non-contact hours. I have heard of inspectors arriving at the end of a child care day at 3.30 p.m. expecting to do their inspection. The setting will therefore have to pay staff for those non-contact hours, even though parents are not paying for that. There is no appreciation of the fact that this is happening.

In addition, capitation is being withdrawn for children who are not in attendance when it is outside the control of the setting. They have provided staff to be there with the expectation that a child will turn up. They cannot know in advance that the child will not turn up or will be brought away. How can we deal with those issues when it is outside the control of the setting? Obviously, there may be times when matters are within the control of the setting but otherwise there are issues, including the shortfall in payments.

People are becoming more professional through training at FETAC level 8 and higher capitation. We want to develop a quality child care workforce but how much can settings afford to pay? This links into our previous discussion about the County Donegal child care report, including how we are investing, who we are investing in, staffing, salary levels, career structure and development.

I have raised the question of childminders several times in the Seanad, so I will not do so again now. We need, however, to re-examine that matter on another day because it is a big issue. I do not accept that we should not interfere in the matter. The Minister referred to Síolta, the national quality framework for early childhood education, and Aistear, the early childhood curriculum framework, and said that the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment or NCCA is examining them. Can she give us a timeline for when the result of that examination can be expected? It will be very much welcomed.

To revert to an earlier point, who will be doing the inspections of child care settings? For example, environmental health officers have a four-year degree qualification, so we also need to examine the quality of the inspections concerned.

Within inspections, there must be power in the sanctions and powers for people to improve, such as the improvement notices referred to. It is the carrot and stick approach. The way the food safety notices are done gives good scalability for people to return with 24 hours or two days and we must look at those issues.