Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Minister may not be able to answer this question but I ask her to fight for money in the budget for this purpose. A significant amount of funding was put into the second ECCE year but the process needs to continue and we will be behind the Minister in fighting for funding for this when budget time comes. I also ask that the commitments be to direct subsidy rather than tax breaks, of which the Minister of State has said she is in favour. Direct subsidy is a much more proactive way to do it.

Is the Minister of State aware that some ECCE providers are concerned that they will have affordability difficulties with the contract they have been asked to sign? Correspondence from providers of child care services suggests that the expansion of the ECCE scheme will not be cost effective for them, because of the fact that it does not involve all-year funding.

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