Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

My second question is on childcare. It is well-flagged there are three phases to childcare. The first is pay and conditions in year 1. The second is some attempt to reduce costs and the third is to try to improve public governance of what is effectively a model that utilises private providers. Lots of people would like to see a more publicly-provided model and great early childcare providers, especially in disadvantaged communities, are publicly provided. The difficulty is how we phase out a system where people are employed by private operators. Often these people are doing it because they love it and they are small providers. Has ICTU a view of what that public governance and perhaps removal of private operators might look like? If we want a public system, how do we do that without squeezing out good small providers that are providing private childcare? Have the witnesses thought about the balance in the final year of this three-year programme might look like?