Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Ms McNally very much for being very honest in that. It is important to know the position.

I am going to delve into something that I suppose many new Deputies would not be aware of, namely, how complex the whole childcare sector is. Deputy Funchion is here with me. We sat on the Joint Committee on Children and Youth Affairs in the previous Dáil. We know exactly how complicated the sector is. One has the private, the community, the various NGOs and everything else.

I want to go back to this expert advisory group and then the reference group. Why can we not have had everybody sitting down at the table together in order to have an input from the unions, the NGOs, community and private providers? I admire all the good work by everybody but I believe the dots are not being connected. In the context of the latter, one could see, looking around the Chamber this evening, that there was confusion around the questions. Maybe that is coming up because not everybody's voice is being heard. I know that this goes back to last September but since then we have had the insurance issue and the march on Merrion Square.

We have also seen the emergence of various organisations in the interim. They bring a voice and a weight because they represent so many people. Does Dr. Lynch believe that everybody should be at the same table in order that there can be a cohesive voice and that the Government and the Department can give a cohesive answer? At the moment, it seems to be very disjointed and, as one Deputy described it earlier, fractured. This is not good for parents, for staff or for the sector. When what I have outlined obtains, there is lack of communication. How can we rectify the position?