James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am glad the Deputy has raised this because this group is looking at more than just affordability and accessibility. It is looking at future investment in child care and the early years are but one section of child care years. We have zero to six, six to 12 and 12 to 18. People often forget about the 12 to 18 year olds and the latchkey kids, as they are called. Many parents are very uncomfortable about the fact their children are under no supervision between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. and would like to see some way of having this addressed. It is part of this work.

I do not mind what way one feeds into the other as they will both inform each other. I will not stand up and jump about it, but to me it makes more sense that the early years group would feed into the interdepartmental group. They will both inform each other. In my view one cannot operate in silos. It is a terrible mistake we made in the past in other areas of the public services we deliver. We need to ensure we have a seamless coherent service for children as they pass through various stages of development. We all know the transition phase for children is the most difficult time, going from little school to big school and from school to university. These are very difficult and challenging times for younger people. The idea is to have an overarching policy that looks at how we invest in our child care through different age groupings, and how to get the best outcomes for the children. We need to look at how we spend money now, as it is not always about vast volumes of new money but better bang for the buck we spend at present, and we need to assure and reassure ourselves, through continual evaluation, that we are getting the results we want for our children, which are better outcomes for them.