Ms Irene Gunning:

Deputy Flanagan referred to care and education. Whatever we do, we do not want a split between care and education because they go together. We, as the adults, provide the care and education while the children learn and develop. Regardless of what we provide, the children develop all the time. Positively or negatively, they learn all the time. What we must do is provide the relationships for them to do so. It is a choice between parental care and centre-based child minding. From brain research, we know that children only learn. Small babies learn. I have heard people question whether we need education for babies. Babies are the ones who are learning rapidly. They learn only within an emotional environment that is conducive to that learning. It has to be a nice, emotional environment in which they are seen as centre stage. This must be emphasised.

Many of us would like to see collective retraining of inspectors in order to augment their expertise in early childhood development.