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

I am pleased to have an opportunity to bring the Childcare Support Bill to Committee Stage. When I introduced the Bill to the House on Second Stage I was very grateful for the strong support I received from all sides of the House and the very constructive tone contained in all suggestions made. I acknowledge and thank Deputies and the Chairman for their support of the Bill and especially for the detailed attention they have given to preparing amendments. In particular, I note in advance that I am pleased to accept in principle an amendment to Schedule 2 to the Bill on the purpose of referrals for child care support from Tusla, the Child and Family Agency. Similar amendments on the issue were proposed by Deputies Rabbitte, Mitchell and Funchion. We can discuss the detail later in the meeting but I want to signal at the outset that I accept the amendments in principle and I thank the Deputies for their valuable contribution.

I also want to signal in advance that I plan to propose a small number of further amendments on Report Stage. These amendments will principally involve minor changes to the Child Care Act 1991 to facilitate the registration of school-aged child care services with Tusla. As such, they result from my announcement last December that I planned to introduce the regulation and registration of school-aged child care providers during this year in order that these providers can take part in the affordable child care scheme at the outset. To achieve this outcome, I plan to propose a number of amendments to the definition of school-aged services, which are set out in the Child Care Act 1991, so as to clarify more precisely the scope of such services and to expand the definition to include children up to 15 years of age. The definition is currently limited to primary school children, and the proposed amendment will ensure it aligns instead with the age limit of 15 years as set out in the affordable child care scheme.

The introduction of school-aged child care regulations will also have knock-on implications for the exemptions from registration for childminders, which are also set out in the Child Care Act at section 58L. Therefore, I intend to propose two related amendments to section 58L to ensure unintended consequences for childminders do not arise. At the same time, I want to confirm that all registered childminders will be eligible to participate in the affordable child care scheme. We will not only seek to maintain but to grow over time the number of registered childminders. The report of the expert group on childminding, which I commissioned, was submitted to me last month and will be published by the group shortly. I intend to develop an action plan setting out short, medium and long-term actions in response to the report to support the childminding sector on a path towards registration.