Ms Frances Byrne:

In Early Childhood Ireland, we look at the issue through two lenses. The first is the child-centred lens. I think some of my colleagues would run a mile if they heard the word "campus" being used. I know that there has been a debate on the issue in bigger countries, such as the US. I have seen the debates myself. I am aware that AT&T and other big employers opened work-based crèches and there were certainly questions as to whether that was a very child-centred approach and whether they were the best places to have crèches. I think Senator Doherty's point was more about schools and using existing school buildings. Of course, it is important to acknowledge that pre-school and after-school services are provided in many of the national schools across the country.

The second point we would make is that because of the lack of planning and because there is nobody with oversight of that piece in the same way there is within the Department of Education, we are advocating for the establishment of the single agency of childcare Ireland to be established as soon as possible. There are crazy situations where a local school will decide to provide services. I am not criticising the schools. Often, such decisions are taken for the best of reasons. Much of the time it is to support children whose parents are coming and going for transport reasons and for work reasons and might have difficulties showing up at school time and so on. The school will offer a service to parents and open a breakfast club or after-school club, when there is a perfectly good crèche down the road that has been operating for 30 years. Suddenly, competition is being introduced. That is why we need planning. We need proper planning through the single agency to look at a particular area and see if the provision of services by schools is feasible. I am not referring to feasibility from a financial point of view. We want public funding going into the sector. The State is funding more and more services, as it should, and it fully funds pre-schools. It is important to say that the ECCE scheme is fully funded. We also have the national childcare scheme and core funding will be introduced. However, we are allowing further development down the road when we know, for example, there are two housing estates in the area and the three-year-olds are going to grow up and we are going to have two crèches. I hope the Senator sees the point I am making. I absolutely hear the Senator. However, it goes back to the previous point. This is not brownfielding Ireland. There are big challenges.

We have had pre-schools in Ireland since the 1950s. Now we have multiple models. Many of the models are really child- and family-centred. Families have engaged with them, whether it is out of choice or because they are looking at the system and becoming aware that it is the reality. Families have engaged with them. That needs to be brought into our conversations and deliberations about future planning. I get the fact that school buildings are empty in the afternoons and evenings. That absolutely needs to be part of the national conversation that we need to have about the issue, as my colleague from SIPTU has described.