Tom Neville (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the movement on the maximum and minimum thresholds. It is movement towards affordable childcare which was raised as a major issue during the last general election campaign. We need to continue that work to develop the economy and facilitate parents who want to go out to work.

The first question I would like to ask is related to the recruitment of social workers by Tusla. Will it be done at local level? Are there proposals for it to happen at that level, as opposed to using broader national or central panels?

I hope I am not moving off the point in raising the issue of community childcare services. It has been raised with me in recent months that when community childcare service providers are looking for their subventions, they have to give details of the target commitment for each child set by his or her parents. Throughout the course of the year it may fluctuate. The number of hours a parent originally thought his or her child would spend in the childcare facility might decrease. As a result, the facility's budget decreases. As the service provider tries to react to all of these situations, there can be knock-on effects in the planning of services for the year. Have solutions been explored by the Minister or the Department? Perhaps there might be a buffer zone to mitigate the fluctuations. A parent may commit to his or her child being in a particular facility for a particular period, but circumstances may change. If parents finish work early, for example, that can have a knock-on effect in the form of fluctuations in the subvention budget. I am not disputing and agree that there is a need to achieve value for money and for transparency and accountability, but we do not want to put community facilities in such a bind that the amount of administrative and forecasting work they have to do renders them unable to do their jobs when there are fluctuations. Have talks taken place and has any thought been given to finding a solution?