Ms Julie Ahern:

I will be brief. I also want to acknowledge what Deputy Sherlock said, starting with the point about children, which is key, and his reading out of those articles in the convention. Once we start there, we cannot go far wrong. Mr. O'Connor already covered the question of a public model so I will not labour the point, but now is the time for us to start teasing out what that means. If the committee asked all of us that question, we would all say something a little bit different. There would be similarities and differences but we should tease it out and start planning towards it. We are at a point where the State is putting a lot of investment into early years education and care, and hopefully that will continue to grow, but we should make sure we are getting exactly what we want for children at the end of the day.