Ms Marie Daly:

The most important thing for me would be an examination of salaries for our professionals. As I stated, 60% of them earn less than a living wage, which is not good enough. We are putting more demands on them in terms of training and education. If we do not address this issue, apart from all of the other crises that are going on within the sector, the sector will lose very good people and we will not be able to staff childcare services.

If the Department and Minister are taken away, we will go back 20 years in childcare and it will be an insult to the childcare sector which is struggling to do the best it can. That will show a Government where exactly we stand in terms of its priorities. It would be a massive mistake. Sustainability for services is huge, and we are such a complex sector that one shoe does not fit all. There are differently sized pots and we have to come up with a solution that takes into consideration all of the complexities of the sector we are dealing with.