Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin North Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for her reply and I know her commitment to the area is unquestioned. In her reply she indicated that none of the children depicted in last night's programme would have been in receipt of the free preschool year as they were too young. If we are to convince the Irish people that we need a second free preschool year, we will have to deal with younger children and we must be able to ensure Irish people will have confidence in the system and that the second preschool year will be worthy of taxpayers' investment.

I would like the Minister to respond to my question about direct provision centres as the issue is connected to how we deal with children under the care of private providers funded by the State and those funded directly by the State. The Minister knows that direct provision centres are dealing with children who are not being adequately cared for. We all know about this so we cannot let the opportunity go by without addressing that issue. As others have said today, we need a fuller debate at an early stage to flesh out these issues in a more prolonged debate.

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