Ms Mary McLoughlin:

The Deputy referred to the Indecon reports in respect of child care costs. One of the challenges for the Department, which we are working on in the strategy, is the issue of funding services directly, which is what the OECD says you could do, or providing child care costs directly to parents. In the past, we provided the early childhood supplement and the difficulty with that approach was that it did not necessarily go into the sector or provide for places. Part of the early years strategy is setting out a vision of how, when funding becomes available, it is best delivered. We need a clear vision and that is what we are working towards.