Mary Seery Kearney (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Thank you, Chair. I am in Leinster House.

I thank the witnesses for their participation, for coming and speaking so frankly with us today. Their submissions to us are a thorough and honest appraisal of the fears that would lie in the process ahead.

I would despair at the notion that we could not get there by 2028. The past year has proven the centrality and absolute necessity of good-quality childcare and how essential it is to everybody's quality of life and ability to function, and particularly for the access to the workplace of women who, despite our best efforts, are in the main the primary carers. One of the lessons we have learned from Covid has been that a hybrid working model is in our future and in order to do that, we need childminding alongside crèche and centre-based facilities.

That said, I hear everything that the witnesses are saying about the fears with regard to regulation. My experience of being an adviser within the county and city children committees and being involved within the childcare sector has been that the current inspection regime and regulation regime is arbitrary in its application, causes much administrative burden and is remarkably difficult. I am looking forward to this committee reviewing that and taking it by the teeth and tearing it apart, I hope, into something that is more manageable because it is onerous for centre-based providers. It is essential that the witnesses are involved in putting in place the regulations as we go forward.

Over the past couple of months, my party has conducted a widespread care-of-the-child consultation and we have run policy laboratories. Arising out of that, we have found the priority - 81% of the participants were parents - that people required availability, affordability and location.

To me, childminding fits those requirements really nicely and well. What do the witnesses believe are reasonable regulations? What should be expected of childminders in their homes? When it comes to qualifications, I believe they should all be QQI-accredited and that we should be setting up childminding as a career path and a career of choice for as many as possible and looking at qualifications in that regard. We could use a grandfathering system in recognition of experience in respect of current childminders in a way that was not facilitated in professionalism and centre-based care. We can learn from where we missed and lost people in that process in order that we can bring that forward and into this. I would be particularly interested in hearing what the witnesses have to say about that.