Ms Bernie McNally:

If there is a parent at home, the children will be going home. However, if the parent is working, even for a couple of hours per week, or in training for a few hours per week, we will give them 40 hours of childcare. It is a labour activation and anti-poverty measure. It will be a significant change for many services and it creates significant challenges for them. We could argue that there are more children looking for places and several providers operate a waiting list. There may be other children who can take those places. We have done a lot of work on looking at sustainability. A report on it is nearing completion. The Secretary General referred to our sustainability budget. There is €1.7 million in sustainability funding each year and that can be availed of by services which are in crisis because they are losing income and which need to transition to a better and more viable model. We will work with such services. We have a case management system to do so and to look at how they can cope with this change.