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

Intense preparations are under way to deliver our ambitious goal of turning our child care system from one of the most expensive in the world to the best. What we are putting in place this year will benefit children and families for generations to come. It is vital we get this right. As the Deputy acknowledges, there is much work to do.

The Deputy is well aware, as a member of the Committee on Children and Youth Affairs, that the committee is involved in progressing the necessary legislation and there are business processes to be developed and data protection issues to address as well as a new and robust IT system.

We will need to integrate data from the Department of Social Protection and the Office of the Revenue Commissioners, and testing of the systems will have to be rigorous. This system must work for all families, no matter their circumstances. Despite the huge workload, my officials and those in other Government Departments and Pobal are determined that families will start getting extra money this autumn. This is our top priority. In order to guarantee these payments, some other work will take longer than expected. For example, the fully automated system will not be ready when families start benefiting from the increased subsidies. We are working with Pobal to ensure that our interim measures will deliver without any excessive administrative burden.

I do not want to put any extra unnecessary work on parents or the dedicated providers. I fully recognise that people need information. In the next few weeks, I will be in a position to provide a detailed update on delivery plans. Full information will then be made available to the public. However, let me emphasise that this is a huge undertaking. A rushed system which does not work would be a major setback which could take years to correct.

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