Mr. Joe Rynn:

I thank members for their questions and thoughts. I will reply first to the questions posed by Deputy Troy.

In terms of the level of consistency of supports throughout the country, there are 30 CCCs and these are aligned to national policy. Prior to the establishment of the national network that is now in place through Childhood Committees Ireland, there might have been a perception that the 30 committees were raising and pursuing issues with members and the various the Departments and were in continual communication with them. However, in an important step for us, we streamlined our process in order to ensure that there is one unified voice emanating from the 30 committees, that we engage with Departments and policy-makers on the issues we identify and that we bring forward solutions. We have addressed one of the weaknesses of the previous structure through the development of the CCI because we believe it is important to have a consistent, coherent system of communication with all the stakeholders involved. That is something we worked hard to develop over the past three years. The level of supports in each county is very similar. In larger urban areas, there are greater service numbers required and more needs to address. As a result, it may not be possible to give as much attention to those service providers in urban areas as one can to their rural counterparts. The authorities in smaller counties are able to offer more intensive supports and devote more time in terms of meeting services' needs. There might be an inconsistency in this regard but it is due to different levels of support and engagement and the simple volume of people with which one is dealing. In Dublin there are 450 services whereas in other counties there may only be 100. These are issues which must be managed. The supports are the same in each company, it is just the level of intensiveness one is able to offer when providing supports to a service.

The issue regarding resources is ongoing. Deputy Troy referred to a particular figure, which we discussed earlier. There has been no increase in resources and, in fact, we absorbed a 20% cut over the past three to four years. This has had implications in terms of how we respond to and manage service issues. Better Start, the national support programme, has been put in place and we have engaged with it.

Any service that seeks supports under Better Start and the specialist mentoring service goes through the CCC. A total of 200 services have gone through that nationally to date. They come through the CCC for engagement with, and referral into, the mentoring supports.

Our staff have also access to training around the new practice guidelines. The two frameworks - Aistear and Síolta - have been merged into a common set of practice guidelines and we are looking at how we can build in a training programme using those frameworks for services, but, again, we can only do so much within the resources we have. We are looking at how we can implement and support Aistear and Síolta in a much more integrated fashion next year within our plans.

Ms McMonagle referred to PIP, which is an online implementation system for programme management. We are hoping that system will free us from some of the administrative duties we have been given and that we will get into the space of focusing on quality supports, because there are 30 specialist mentors in place through Better Start. That will not address all the needs of the services, and we have a resource within the CCCs, which can do some of the pre-development work. We hope to get into that space over the next year. We are writing that into our plans, which will go to the Department for 2016 funding allocation.

Childminding remains important for us. It is a key access point for parents. They continue to use childminders to provide care, particularly for the younger age range. Parents with babies feel more comfortable with childminders and look on them as providing a home from home. They feel it is a better choice. Adequate resources have not been put into childminding, but we support childminders through our teams. We have a voluntary notification process. The issue of regulation of childminders has been well debated and highlighted. It is a policy decision that needs to be made. We welcome regulation for all of the sector. It should be a level playing field for both school-age and preschool children, and we continue to engage with childminders who wish to engage with us. It is a voluntary process and we continue to do that.

Community services are under serious threat and serious pressure. It is about resources, because they deal with vulnerable families that have many complex needs. That has a cost for a service to manage, because family supports must be provided and individual needs addressed. It is not just about funding a place for a child; the families look for other supports. The community services are managed within the community child care subvention programme, and that just pays a portion of the fee. Invariably, services use other means to address the shortfall. They have a relationship with Tusla, which funds some services. They had relationships with other funders, but much of that has been withdrawn and, therefore, they are down to trying to extract that funding from families that do not have it. It is a resource issue that has to be addressed in the context of the current programme. Services are dependent on CE in some cases. There has been a great deal of reconfiguration in how child care is implemented by community services, and the Department of Social Protection has done significant work on that. Officials have reconfigured the CE programme as a three-year programme whereby people are put in an apprenticeship programme over three years. There is value in that, as it allows staff and others who wish to train to be practitioners to undertake a three-year programme. One of the issues we spotted was that some services are depending on CE to meet their ratio. We acknowledge that, and that is one of the reasons the extension of the scheme was granted. We highlighted the concerns we had around the implementation of the 2015 deadline for the learner fund and the requirement for FETAC levels 5 and 6 qualifications. We had concerns that if that change came in this September, some of the community services would have been unable to ensure their staff had attained the necessary qualifications. The extension is welcome in that it allows us to address those issues with services that need to examine how they manage the implications of this change, but, equally, the learners can train themselves on level 5 and 6 programmes in their own time. They do not get time outside their day jobs to do this. They have families and other commitments and they take these programmes in the evenings. It was an enormous amount to ask of these people to deliver this in 12 months. The extension gives them breathing space, but we want this to happen. The Department has committed to the 2016 deadline and there has been no movement on that. The additional year provides time to address those issues.

The final issue was tax credits. From our perspective, in terms of making a decision, we want a policy decision that considers three issues. The first is the sustainability of child care providers. Whatever policy decision is made, it should not impact on them and it should give them a long-term plan to trade and operate. Second, it has to ensure parents can have affordable and accessible child care and the needs of the child are fully addressed. There is no silver bullet to address this. Tax payments may be one, and direct payment to services are another, but each policy decision must have a positive solution for both parents and providers, because their needs are equal and they have to be considered in whatever decision is made.

I believe that covers most of the Deputy's questions and I will let Ms McMonagle pick up some of the other points.