Mr. Mick Kenny:

I reiterate that many services are looking for workarounds at the moment to try to make the national childcare scheme, NCS, work for these children and families. The contributors from the Dublin 8 After School Alliance said they should not necessarily have to go through a sponsorship model or jump through a hoop. Fundamentally, the issue with the NCS is that it is not child-centred and is not focusing on children’s rights. As we said in our opening statement, we have concerns that the whole ethos around the national childcare scheme is breaching the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child because Article 2 states that children should not be discriminated against based on the status of the parent. Yet, with the NCS, we see children who, because of the employment status of the parent, are being treated differently, such as children of working parents. My concern is that this scheme is broadening the gap between these children. We have the children who can access our services simply because their parent is working or training but then we have children who cannot attend, get the hot meals, the homework support or the early intervention work. This is going to be detrimental to those children and families. In any approach going forward, we need to be looking at children’s rights to ensure that what we do is in the best interests of the child.