Ms Bernie McNally:

If it is a matter of compliance with the rules of the scheme - attendance, etc. - or use of public funding, there are measures in place to take the money back.

The Deputy is talking about behaviour, the treatment of children, etc. If it just about money and following rules, etc., we can reclaim that money immediately from services but if it concerns the kinds of behaviour we saw on "Prime Time", the only way we can take money from services is if they are deregistered. If Tusla makes the decision to deregister a service and does so, funding is stopped. We do not fund deregistered services, nor do we fund services that have failed to register. For example, one of the "Prime Time" cases was of a service that had failed to register for 14 months and we did not give it one penny of funding. We are committing to build on that in First 5 and to look at how we would withdraw funding when standards are poor. We have already committed to that and we have started to put in place the expert group, which the Minister will announce in the coming weeks. We are committed to moving that forward. It is a challenge because it depends on the standard and level of evidence that is necessary, providers have to be treated fairly and the majority are trying to do their best for children, so we need a good and robust process and we will address it.