Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Yes. It is important to get the message across to parents that if they read a report about the service they and their children use, they should discuss it with their service provider. The reports were available under freedom of information legislation in any case. It is important that they are published as quickly as resources permit and are made available in a form that is suitable for online publishing.

My experience is that parents ask service providers about their most recent reports. Any good provider will want to share the inspection report with parents. As I noted, 55 service reports will be published online today. Inspectors have also been contacted by many parents in recent weeks seeking information. There is considerable interaction between parents and services.

I have also given a commitment that any new reports on inspections carried out from 1 July onwards will be published consistently on completion, which may take a number of weeks. It will take some months to publish previous reports online as this will entail some technical work.

I was asked about legal fees. The provision in 2012 was €650,000, whereas expenditure was €186,000. It is difficult to predict spending under this heading owing to the once-off nature of expenditure and the timing factors involved. The provision in 2013 is €662,000, which means the growth in the Estimate between 2012 and 2013 is marginal at only €12,000. There are a range of child care protection cases in which the Department must be represented and these give rise to legal fees.

Deputy McLellan focused on the changes required in child care services. I assure her that we are delivering the eight point plan I announced. I provided an update on the online publication of inspection reports. I agree with the Deputy on the need to strengthen the national inspection system and developments and changes in recent weeks and months. The inspection teams have been reorganised to operate at a national level.

What we had before was more of a local service, but it needed to be seen and operated as a national service. An interim national manager has been appointed, who, with the national audit of standards and quality in preschool services will identify the key themes emerging from the inspection reports.

A point was made in regard to the for-profit sector. The audit we are undertaking will clearly show trends and issues that repeat in the inspections in both the for-profit and community sectors. We did not have this kind of data previously. Now we will have it and will be in a position, when we have the audit, to see the precise trends in the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors.

We are replacing the notification system with registration and this will apply to new services from 1 September this year. We are also introducing new standards for inspection. That work is almost complete and the results will be included in the guidance for future inspections. Therefore, inspectors will be inspecting against new standards. However, I would like to stress that section 5 in the current regulations require inspectors to examine the relationship with the child and the opportunities the child gets for development in these facilities. In regard to the child and family agency, that has now been approved by the Government.

On the area based initiative, a process is in place and applications have been received. Applications were accepted from area-based not-for-profit organisations which are either part of a pre-existing consortium or prepared to form one for the purpose of the initiative. In each case, the consortium must be led by an organisation with a proven track record of working with statutory and non-statutory services. The closing date was 31 May and some 50 applications were received and are currently being reviewed by the Department. There is an opportunity for a number of large initiatives, but the process also provides that groups which are not currently at that stage can get funding from this initiative to help them develop the work they are doing so that at a later stage they may be in a position to be involved in initiatives more like the one we have seen in Dublin.

The funding commitment is €14.85 million from the State over 2013-16, with matching funding from the groups. This funding will support the three existing sites and bring in at least three more. In addition, these initiatives will be built into the mainstream services. I hope to see the first new sites being announced later this year. The application process set out the criteria, but the initiative is being based objectively on deprivation levels of the area, but the applicants must also demonstrate that they are able to deliver the project. Therefore, we might have an area with a very high deprivation index, but it might not have the agencies there that are able to work together and deliver the kind of project we want to see develop under this initiative.

The issue of child benefit was raised. One of the reasons we have not had investment in child care services is because we have primarily delivered cash based payments to families. There has not been investment in what the Deputy would like to see, affordable and accessible child care. Any investment in that area pales in comparison to what we have given in direct cash benefits. The evidence in regard to cash benefits is that they are extremely important to families, but so is affordable and accessible child care. We must work on the goals of increasing investment in early years child care and of developing it as has been done in other countries. However, it is a very difficult time to be trying to do that when we are borrowing €1 billion per month.

I thank Deputy Doherty for her support. The establishment of the new child and family agency is a real opportunity to change how services are delivered, but it is a challenging time. Both Deputies Doherty and Byrne mentioned increasing numbers, and we are seeing more children coming into care. This is a decision people take with great reluctance and the increasing numbers are reflective of the increase in the child population. It is not an abnormally high number by comparison internationally. However, we have a bigger child population and this is reflected in the numbers of children coming into care. We are also seeing an increase in referrals - 44,000 this year. As I said, this is in line with the demographic increase. The number of children aged from 0 to 19 increased by 5% between 2008 and 2012 and the number of children aged four years and under increased by 13%. This increase puts pressure on all of the Department's programmes and I agree there should be more funding. It is very important we invest in young people and as the budgetary situation improves, we need to develop programmes further.