Ms Bernie McNally:

Specifically on the sustainability fund and the questions Deputy Funchion asked about opening it up to the private sector, there are some potential state aid issues there, so we are looking into those at the moment. Hopefully, that will not prove to be an issue. We certainly would like to extend the fund if we could and we have heard the feedback on that.

As regards sustainability generally, much of the 141% investment in the sector in the past five years has gone to parents but some of it has gone to the sector because sustainability is a core objective of the Department.

Specifically in regard to capacity restraints because of social distancing, the public health guidance is such that some services will be able to open with almost normal capacity because the public health advice has been that we can retain the ratios if the space that is provided is appropriate. Some services will be able to bring back a very high percentage of parents and we hope that too will assist with sustainability, in addition to the funding packages that we provided initially for the first couple of months, the one for July and August, and the one we hope to provide from the end of August onwards.