Ms Marian Quinn:

I thank Senator Clonan for his observations. I can see his background of working with children in what he has asked. Very often, it takes working with children for people to realise why this is so hugely important. I agree with what both my colleagues have said. The significant work that is being done by the Department and the Government has possibly caused more problems than it has cured because the sequencing has not been correct. We might have a very strong building with the building blocks in place but the foundation on which it is built is so shaky that it is causing money to leak out. I do not think we have the most effective way of spending money. As Ms Heeney and Ms Byrne alluded to, there is a need for a concrete plan. I know we work from budget to budget and we are tied to the budgets. Working from budget to budget without a strong plan that allows people to see where we are going creates a lot of confusion, frustration, disappointment, disillusionment, etc. As I alluded to earlier, if we were to build a model whereby we will need more spaces because the national childcare scheme is being increased or because the access and inclusion model is being widened and more children are going to be able to access it, we need it to be built on the ability to staff the service. If we cannot staff it, there is a problem of sequencing. It is great to announce such a scheme but it is problematic if the scheme is not going to be actualised.

On model provision, we said for years that we need to consider what is happening in the other areas of education. If you want to have core staff, you need to be considering the possibility of the Government paying the staff, as is the case for primary schools. That would guarantee, tie in and ring-fence finance. We would be able to tie it in with a pay scale, maternity leave, sick pay and all of that sort of stuff. The staff, the educators, would then feel valued. They would recognise there is a plan and would understand that something might not happen today but a plan is in place for it to happen in three or four years. That is the opposite of working from budget to budget, where staff are wondering is something going to happen this year, is there going to be a little bit of an increase or any increase at all, or is the Government going to focus on a different area. That is something we need to look at. It ties in with the publicly funded model. Perhaps that needs to be considered.