Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

If I could go back to my example because it is a reasonably foreseeable problem. Due to their physical layout, some facilities may face greater challenges than others. This has a significant impact on the tens and tens of families who may have to scramble to find somewhere else or who may have to pay more in order to take a full day instead of a half day.

It has a very significant impact on every single childcare provider in structural difficulties who, for whatever reason, just cannot fit into the arrangements for next week. For example, the reopening grant could be used to survive until August or September when, based on the trajectory of the virus and how circumstances can change, it is not impossible that circumstances could change substantially with regard to public health advice. On the basis that I can reasonably foresee this, what is the Department thinking and forecasting to work to try to keep those providers who may decide to close, with an impact on parents, and who might otherwise have been viable if they had reopening grants and other grants that could see them through this period into the next academic year and some real clarity at that point?