Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I hear exactly what she is saying about the ECCE staff. Those staff finish up at the end of June and could be available and to be included as part of the scheme. Why not? We need as many people trained in creating that awareness and understanding of how to work with and support. That is what is should be about. On transport, I am not the Minister with responsibility and I have to keep saying this but at the same time, if a child cannot access the service that is something we must address. Whatever the mode of transport is, we must address it.

Children need to be able to participate in their July provision. It ensures that a child's relationship at home does not fall down and become a crisis situation of needing to access respite. We also must ensure we continue that routine. As we are talking about the spectrum of need, parents know best. They still have to hold down jobs and go to work. They cannot take every August off, because at the moment they already have to take August off if they have a child with additional needs. In some cases, they had to take an extra two weeks of unpaid leave on top of the four weeks.

The Government wants to find a solution. Extra funding was found this year and we have to compliment the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Michael McGrath, for doing to that. To be fair to the Minister for Education and the Minister of State, Deputy Madigan, they brought in student teachers. They put in place a scale and said they would pay further in advance. This still did not meet the needs, so we now have to ask what else do we have to do to make it work. There is no denying that we need to look to the Maltese model. It is a fantastic model that runs for the entire summer. We have the trainees. We have the ability, capacity and buildings to deliver this. We need to find a model to apply it. We cannot fail any further. We have a good benchmark to start with and we need to build on it.