Ms Frances Byrne:

No, that is fine. I hope that I have noted it all. The Chair might remind me if not. It is very interesting that she repeated the point about out-of-hours because it was one of the things that I realise we might not have focused on enough in our submission. There certainly is a role for school age. We see its provision in other countries where parents are doing night shifts. That is particularly in a context where both parents might be on night shifts or in a one-parent situation. The Department has acknowledged that is one of the next things it would like to get to in relation to the national childcare scheme. That would be very welcome. It happens. There are informal systems in place but it is important in that not everyone works from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. It is really good that the citizens' assembly recognised that. It goes back to a child-centred, family-centred system that would bring as many possibilities into the equation. I fully agree with that.

The Chair's questions on core funding are really challenging. We do not yet know if settings will sign up in their droves. We are all waiting to see and providers are waiting to get the contracts which they are due to get this month. As my colleague from Big Start said, the proposed pay scale has only just been published so all that has to be digested and considered. Presumably people in the Department are working away on the calculations around all of that.

On the question of what happens if it does not go through, it will be really stark. We have asked the Department and the Minister repeatedly. We do not want it to fail but if it does, we have asked if there is a plan B. The answer is "No." That is quite worrying. We have to be positive and hope that it will go through. The next thing that needs to happen is that it becomes multi-annual. We absolutely welcome core funding. We welcomed Nurturing Skills and Partnership for the Public Good, the two big reports which are now public policy for early years and school-age care. For full disclosure, we were heavily involved in Nurturing Skills and somewhat involved on the funding model report where there were consultations with Frontier Economics. Obviously if we did not like the outcomes, we would be suitably critical. We absolutely do. However, Early Childhood Ireland would suggest that one reason some providers have been quite unhappy, rattled and concerned about the core funding is that it has not been accompanies by a vision that brings the two major reports together and describes the journey that Ireland will go on. I would love for the Minister to answer all of the Chair's questions to describe the next five years. Prior to this year's budget announcement in October, this is what we looked for. We urged the Government to increase funding but also describe what it was going to do for the next five years. We think that would give certainty to the sector, and crucially to parents, which is very important. If you are a parent in the beloved Nordic countries or, indeed, Germany, France or other countries at the higher level of public investment, the one thing that you have that new parents in Ireland do not have is certainty. You know exactly how much money you will get and whether it will be split in a two-parent family between both parents and what will happen when the parents return to work.

In Ireland, apart from the six months of paid maternity and some paid paternity leave, the statutory leave, and the Early Childhood Care and Education, ECCE, programme which is part-time for 38 weeks over two years, a person has no certainty. It would be very important - this goes back to the point that we have repeatedly made like broken records - and to be very fair to the Government which has made these commitments, that we are not starting with a brownfield site. It is all the more important that the Government describes the next five years so that we cannot use that language of the X factor etc., but to go on and to describe a journey so that people have certainty about what the ultimate destination is and what it will look like.

Is the State, as SIPTU has urged, to take over the payment of staff and what are the implications of that? The State is quite right to describe and support continuous professional development, and so on, and so it should, just like it does with teachers, and so forth. We need the wider vision and certainty. When the Minister for Finance or the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform stand up in the Dáil to speak, there are untouchables - the social welfare bill has to be paid every year as do teachers’ wages. That is the certainty. The Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth needs to have a Vote with a tick which we all take for granted, and the discussion should then be about how much more the State will do and what impact that will have on fees etc. The overall direction of travel is very good. It is about the bringing together of the two major reports and what that is going to look like and it is very important that the Government is describing that, as well as its vision.

It is also very important to acknowledge that childminders and school age childcare are both being brought into regulation which is very welcome. With child minders this is happening more slowly and, quite rightly, not with the same onerous regulation that other settings have. That is very important and it is sometimes forgotten that in the Nordic countries, childminders are also part of the picture. They are brought into professionalisation in rural areas or for families with very particular needs, be that because of the needs of the child or the labour market needs of the family out of hours. They are a very important part of the system and it is important also to acknowledge that and school-age childcare also. It is very good that the Government is keeping many balls in the air on all of that but it would be wonderful, remarkable, and reassuring to everybody who is involved if the Government were to produce a five-year plan of what is going to happen.