Ms Teresa Heeney:

I thank the Chair and apologise for being late. I was at another meeting with the Department. I did not hear my colleagues from Childminding Ireland or the ACP so the committee might forgive me if I say anything that has already been said.

To respond to Deputy Costello's question about how we do this, I agree with Ms Quinn that we need a significant advertising campaign. We have experience of bringing an unregistered sector into legislation as it was only recently that centre-based services became registered. We know, therefore, how to do this. We also have significant infrastructure in Tusla, the city and county childcare committees and the voluntary childcare organisations and we have a small but, I imagine, growing childminding advisory cohort around the country. We have the National Parents' Council which now has an early years division and I have no doubt it would be very supportive as well. As such, we have the infrastructure but all of it will need significant resourcing if we are to target and reach the 15,000 additional early years and school-age childcare settings that children attend daily because it is their parents' preferred choice.