Ms Frances Byrne:

I am happy to answer that question. All of the concerns raised by Senator Ruane are exactly the issues that need to be teased out, and we need to do that quickly. No more than the issue that was brought up in regard to gender, there absolutely are concerns about ensuring that all families, all childminders and all potential childminders are involved. Of course there are issues of concern that would extend to mothers. I say "mothers" because, as we said earlier, it is largely to mothers that all of this decision-making falls. I include in that mothers in direct provision, for example, and mothers looking to come out of direct provision.

The Senator has raised a really important point and I very much welcome her comments. We use the word "diversity" loosely but it is important that equality is front and centre in all of its forms and visibilities. There are communities where we have already seen issues in regard to the national childcare scheme, for instance, where people who are not working have had to seek sponsorship and there was huge fear around having to register with Tusla. As the Senator said, that fear is not necessarily based on anything in particular and there was no suggestion that anything untoward was going on. It was just a fear people had. It is very good that the Government and the Department recognised that issue and expanded the list of sponsored organisations. That type of thinking will need to happen in terms of the development of the national action plan.