Mr. Gordon Jeyes:

I want to be clear that I see this as an extremely important programme which was difficult and embarrassing for all involved. It should be particularly embarrassing for the providers of these very expensive services to parents in the areas in question. While I take the general point about salaries, which is an issue for an under-qualified and under-rewarded cohort of staff, in this instance a service was being transacted between parents and companies which have posted significant profits. Something about the public good and private transactions was not working. It was extremely important to shed light on that type of provision and we need to drill down to examine the patterns and correlations.

It is all very well for us to sit here and announce we are doing this or that. We are making our announcements because the revelations in the programme have led to a sense of urgency. It is not that we were not pursuing these measures but we were doing so at the pace of Ireland 2013, which is sometimes quite slow in these recessionary times.

Much needs to be reformed. The Minister immediately commissioned an early years strategy but putting in place a strategy after the bricks and mortar is extremely difficult. The investment was made before who does what was clarified. This needs to be done with rigour and discipline, but it will be more difficult to do now than it would have been when the investment was made in the first place.

With regard to Deputy Troy's comments on incidents prior to the RTE programme, we are working in co-operation with the Garda on the child protection investigation and this must take primacy, which in some ways we all find difficult because it can hold up or slow down other aspects of our considerations. To the best of my knowledge child protection concerns or referrals did not come to our attention until parents were informed during the weekend beginning 17 May. The Garda did not receive footage from RTE until it was requested, which I believe was on 20 May. At this point it became a child protection investigation with our full involvement as per the 1991 Act. It is not for us to oversee any internal investigation or pre-emptive action taken by the crèche to which Deputy Troy referred, but we are investigating it further, and in parallel we are working with it and looking at its compliance with standards.

As committee members can imagine, I went over the timelines on this as carefully as I could in preparation for today. I am not aware of any letter being sent as early as 21 March, so if the Deputy or anybody else has such a letter, I will be happy to examine it. It would be a matter of considerable concern to me. The RTE researcher left one of the crèches involved on 29 March and e-mailed a complaint on 8 April. Having been at another crèche for six weeks, the researcher left on 20 March and made a complaint on 15 April. The RTE presence at the third crèche continued until 14 May and an e-mail of general complaint was sent to the inspection service on 17 May. I do not have all of the complaints in front of me but I would be happy to go through them with any Deputy or parent who wishes to see the paperwork. My notes clearly state the detail was of a general nature and several meetings took place. There was immediate contact with the complainant and requests for meetings on the detail in order that it could be fully investigated. Some of the milder footage was shown to the Garda and some of my colleagues in the week beginning 19 May, the week prior to broadcasting. This is the best of my knowledge of what was going on at the time and I am happy to go through it further.

I have been briefed, although I have some doubt in my mind following a conversation with a parent, that support through a counselling psychologist was available at the request of parents, but there was no intervention as such and the advice is that assessment is not necessarily advisable. To be helpful to the committee, I wish to examine this further to ensure we have not stood back too far because of what has been going on. As I reflect on these issues I am uneasy.

I wish to comment briefly on sanctions and judicial accountability. I can quote a case where we, in a very organised way, took a prosecution over an incident similar to what occurred this week whereby a child was left behind on an outing in a very dangerous part of the city. The judge threw it out despite the great detail and accused the HSE officers who brought it forward of behaving in a fascist way by threatening the livelihood of the child care provider. It was not in doubt that on the way to a picnic in St. Stephen's Green, one child had been left behind on Lower Baggot Street, which is not a safe area for a four year old.

All reports will be online by the end of September at the latest. We have designed a process to put them on Pobal's website. We just need to do some fairness checks so all comments are from the institutions. As the Minister stated, and picking up on Senator van Turnhout's comment, we are working on the quality of our editorial processes with inspector colleagues. We are trying to be specific with regard to regulation No. 5. I wrote to all providers this week asking what they do to communicate with parents. I understand that on low pay they will not have supervision but they should at least have staff meetings. I also asked about their approach to training. As Early Childhood Ireland has pointed out, there is a range within the sector. A small unit can invest in training and may need differential support. This training can be modest. At the very least, parents should expect a greater degree of training from larger units.