Dr. Fergal Lynch:

I absolutely agree with the Deputy. We lay a major emphasis on child protection and child training throughout the system. Deputy Cassells is absolutely right. The early years service is being expanded significantly. In fact, the budget for these areas has increased by approximately €85 million during the past two years. The affordable child care scheme is in preparation at the moment. A critical requirement is to have adequate and appropriate resources for training for child care providers. That is part of the package we are putting in place. We lay a major emphasis on that.

As with all other people working with children, they will be subject to the mandatory reporting system, the Children First system and so on. Fortunately, we are able to look at implementing Children First and the expansion of services now that resources have started to flow to those areas. One critical point is to ensure appropriate training for providers of services. It is not only a matter of training as support is vital as well. Those involved need to be able to deal with difficult cases. People may be unsure of the threshold of the reportability of a particular case, what steps or action they need to take and whether they should be concerned in a particular case.