Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 31 July 2019

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children and Youth Affairs

Issues Regarding Childcare Facilities: Discussion

Mr. Brian Lee:

To be clear, the inspection model is underpinned by several factors. We have our regular schedule of inspections which will be informed by a risk profile of the service, ranging from critical to a low-base risk service. That would be set up on the basis of information available to us, unsolicited information, previous inspections, reports from other regulators and so on, and the profile of the service overall because some present more risk than others, for example, if they are full day or half day and drop in. That dictates the inspection regime. Like all good inspection regimes we receive unsolicited information, we receive it and risk rate it - HIQA operates exactly the same model. Sometimes it triggers an immediate inspection and sometimes it is used to inform the next inspection if it is low-rated risk. It has been of massive benefit to have that system in place because it means we can respond very quickly to concerns. We cannot be out inspecting every day. There is the added benefit of that information coming in to us and it is absolutely totally appropriate to have that model in place.

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