Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

On her first question, Deputy Funchion will be aware of my concern about the issue of pay and conditions for child care providers. The point she raises about the deadline of 21 August is a good one. What about people who are on the dole and need to come back? Perhaps my officials can answer that more specifically.

In general, I note that my awareness of the issue is one of the reasons I have sought additional funding to provide some money to support the administration of the child care scheme which is coming in September. It will be up to providers to determine how to use the extra money. As such, it may be possible to bring people forward sooner. Deputy Funchion put down a great motion in the Dáil last week to look at this issue. She offered some solutions and I suggested it might be helpful to move down the road of sectoral employment orders to which employers and child care providers might sign up in the context of negotiation with their unions. That might be a systematic way to get clarity about what would constitute adequate wages and conditions for child care providers. My Department would co-operate with that.

On the Deputy's suggestion around child minders, I agree about how they could be registered. Certainly, city and county child care committees continue that involvement. It is at a more regional and local level which is perhaps more helpful. As Minister, however, I note that we need child minders to be registered. I hope we can move to that place as soon as possible. It is in the context of the heads of the Bill that I have the powers to identify groups of people like child minders who could come within the scheme as we begin to role it out with the caveat that alternative standards of quality have been developed. I await the report from the working group to see what suggestions come forward on standards with which we could be satisfied to ensure children receive the quality care which can attract a public subsidy. Let it be clear that we need child minders to register and I hope the process is completed as quickly as possible.