Dr. Anne-Marie Brooks:

Regarding the national action plan for childminding and the wider issues raised about funding, the action plan is about raising quality and accessibility and giving parental choice. Opening access to the national childcare scheme is a measure to address affordability and to start to address childcare costs for parents who use childminding options but there is a wider piece of work under way. Deputy Murnane O'Connor recognises the First 5 strategy. In First 5 there is a pledge to double investment in early learning and care and school-age childcare by 2028, rising to just under €1 billion by 2028. A funding model is currently under development. That will become the vehicle to allocate that additional funding to support the objectives of achieving greater affordability, improving quality and addressing issues such as disadvantage and access for certain groups of children. An expert group has been in place since October 2019. That group continues to meet. It is chaired by a former Secretary General of the Department of Health and the work of the group will come to conclusion at the end of this year. There has been very significant stakeholder engagement on the new funding model, how we might achieve greater affordability and how we will support quality. Core to that are the issues the Deputy mentions - the workforce and pay and conditions - and the report of the expert group is due at the end of this year. It will examine how additional funding should be targeted to achieve those objectives of affordability, accessibility and quality.