Ms Marian Quinn:

On the funding and what will be required, one of the estimates, which is probably the best-case scenario in terms of the number of people who are brought into registration and those families who can access it, is €51 million per year. When we look at the budget, the Government has indicated that it will at least double the spending on early childhood education and care, and school-aged childcare over then next ten years. A significant portion of that must go towards childminding. Another significant portion must go to school-aged childcare, along with continuing to resolve the issues in centre-based services, where they are experiencing a staffing crisis and increasing costs.

The statement in the action plan is reasonable, which must be acknowledged, but it states that the phases and how the action plan progresses is budget dependent. This is worrying in relation to the potential stop-starting, as was mentioned earlier, and then having to cherry-pick areas to develop because of a lack of funding. In centre-based service, many difficulties have happened as a result of sequencing and out of sequencing of policy implementation. That is something we must be careful of in childminding. If it is to be budget dependent, we should not cherry-pick in an order that creates perverse consequences or difficulties in the sector. The plan that is tied to the budget must be clearly thought out.