Ms Teresa Heeney:

To respond to Deputy Jan O'Sullivan's question, we know that the expectation of members of Early Childhood Ireland is that the parents who will be looking to participate in the affordable childcare scheme from September are already their clients, with whom they are already working. What we do not expect to happen is that the scheme will be announced and that parents will come knocking on the doors of services. I will ask Ms Gaynor to speak about this because she is one of our members who operates a service. What we know is that parents have heard something about the introduction of the scheme and want to know the details. That presents a very significant problem if the targeted element will not be available in September because parents are already booking their children into services on the assumption that the scheme will be available. For example, if a parent expects to have access to the targeted element in September and the calculation is not made until the January, will there be a shortfall? Will parents receive the money back and will it come out of the 2017 budget or the budget for next year? The fact that a manualised approach is to be used in making the calculation has very real implications.