Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I completely with the Deputy in that regard. She will appreciate that my Department gave a substantial lead-in period to allow for most of the members within the child care and early education sector to prepare for and comply with the regulations. I fully understand it was not possible for that to be the case, particularly with regard to some of the people who are providing in the community services context. I am also aware that even if they had, and I have met with some services who have described some of the difficulties to me, they still would be under pressure in terms of sustainability. One of the reasons for that, particularly in those contexts, is that they are reaching out to do effectively more beyond what child care providers are doing in other contexts, and one of the other things we are looking at is how to ensure there is enough support going into those services, perhaps from other programmes of funding, in addition to the child care provision that I am providing.

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