Mr. Gordon Jeyes:

In light of the Government's interest in this area, I have corresponded with public bodies on the need for them to ensure they are in compliance with the Children First guidelines. As a consequence of previous correspondence, I am sure the public body concerned was aware of the Children First guidelines. A body which believes children may be at risk does not hold back and think about whether it is an issue of child protection. That was one of the faults of the church during the previous decade. Such matters should be reported to the HSE and Garda Síochána who will then make a judgment on whether it should be considered a child protection issue. We did not receive any child protection notification but did receive general complaints about the management and operation of each of the crèches, in each instance some days after the researcher had left their employ.

With regard to Deputy Naughten's point about consistency, I have acknowledged that there was system failure. There is much we must put right. Reforming a system in a time of recession is challenging. However, I am confident in public health nurses as inspectors. The skills of the workforce are excellent, and this applies across Ireland. The problem is that often things are organised in such a way that those skills are not properly utilised. I am not suggesting they should be the only ones in the workforce with responsibility in this area. As this sector matures, there will be others with early childhood qualifications who should also be recruited. Existing public health nurses have good qualifications and do a good job. Often, the system lets them down despite that they have reported accurately.

I understand one of the crèches identified in the RTE programme received a clean bill of health shortly before the programme aired. Let us be clear, RTE obtained those reports through freedom of information and chose to investigate crèche facilities about which we had reservations. It was not an arbitrary choice. They chose crèches about which they knew there would be a story.

The final question related to how often inspections are carried out. I will ask Ms McDonnell to comment on that. A lot of issues have been raised today. It is now up to the committee to focus on where investment should best be targeted. The shopping list from members here today is quite lengthy.