Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I recognise Deputy Rabbitte's interest in the issue of au pairs who are working with families in this country. As she appreciates, the approach of the Government to child care generally is to extend the schemes that are available, to ensure a far wider number of families benefit from the child care subsidies that are available and to introduce a second ECCE year. There was agreement in the budget that more money would be provided for child care in order to extend the programmes, as the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Zappone, announced.

There is a history in this country of informal child care. In terms of access for funding for child care schemes, the Government has asked that childminders would register with county child care committees. They have, and continue for the most part, to operate in an informal and unregulated manner. We would like to see more registration because it is a support both for the families and the childminders who are providing the service. I believe it is in that context that the debate and discussion on au pairs has to be seen.

I welcome the recent ruling to which Deputy Rabbitte referred, and also the fact that the Minister of State, Deputy Pat Breen, ordered a review some months ago. We await its outcome. It is clear there is huge potential for exploitation and we must be very clear what precisely families are asking au pairs to do. The Deputy cited instances where au pairs have been asked to do far more than they originally expected. We will await the review to see precisely what kind of approach is best. In the broader context that I have outlined, we have seen a lot of informal arrangements and they predominate among families who choose childminders. We want to move from that so that we have standards and regulation but the question is how far one goes with regulation. The au pair situation is a classic example of that. Many families will want to continue with more informal arrangements but clearly we need to have good guidelines and the review will examine whether they should be statutory.

The au pair system has traditionally, and should continue to be been seen, as an educational and cultural opportunity for the person visiting, as opposed to a replacement for child care. We do not want to move in that direction where employing somebody on a more casual basis or asking them to be part of one's family is seen in some way as a substitute for child care. A working group on childminders is examining the entire question of registration and how that can be accelerated and we await the report on the au pair situation that the Minister of State, Deputy Breen, has commissioned.

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