Ms Teresa Heeney:

In Ireland the sector has grown up in the main from women running playgroups in their family homes. It can still be characterised in this way. Approximately 4,600 services operate in the country and 70% are private. Of this 70%, 214 services are operated by chains. This means the vast bulk are small local operations which very much act like community-based services. I am sure we all recognise this description of the services. In our infrastructure design, we need to recognise we are speaking about a number of women, many of whom were only recently forced to engage in training to be able to offer the free preschool year. This is the nature of the service. The vast bulk of these women are poorly trained, forced to become unemployed in the summer months and earn on average €10.50 per hour. We must recognise what we have. They do not all make large seven figure sums.