James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In order to provide for the implementation of the legislative changes to the Child Care Act 1991, which were enacted through the Child and Family Agency Act 2013, it was necessary to carry out a root and branch re-examination of the 2006 child care regulations, including a restructuring of the regulations in line with the latest drafting practices. This exercise has proven to be more time consuming than originally envisaged and my Department is continuing to work closely with the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel to finalise the text of the new regulations. I hope to be in a position to publish the new regulations shortly.

The legislative changes to the Child Care Act include the requirement that every preschool service be registered with the Child and Family Agency before being permitted to operate. Every preschool service that was notified to the Health Service Executive prior to the commencement of the Child and Family Agency Act was deemed to be registered for a period of three years. This requirement has been in place since the Act was commenced in January 2014 and does not require regulations to underpin it. The legislation requires that every preschool service that was deemed registered under the terms of the Act must be re-registered by 1 January 2017. The Department is working with the agency to ensure that this task will be completed within the required timeframe.

I secured additional funding of €1.1 million in budget 2016 to support the early years inspectorate in the development of its service. This funding will be used by the agency to recruit 17 additional staff, including additional inspectors and a registration manager who will run a dedicated registration office where all the administrative tasks associated with registration will be carried out.

The Deputy may wish to note that the early years inspectorate has inspected 1,659 services so far this year, an increase of 68% on the same period in 2014.

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