Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I hear exactly what the Minister is saying to me. I do not want to trivialise the situation. While the AIM model provides for absolutely fantastic interventions and wholeheartedly inclusive groupings, it is not working in the sense that it takes 50 days, or ten weeks, for applications to go through. It is a boundary for child care providers who are looking to put systems in place so they can work wholeheartedly as part of an early intervention mechanism. When child care providers take in children on 1 September every year, they need to know they will get the supports they need in a timely manner. However, it can take up to ten weeks, which is a boundary that restricts them when they are considering the possibility of taking in certain children. I am identifying an issue that might be discouraging expansion in the child care sector or deterring people from taking up child care services. Last year, 2,443 children benefitted from level four supports and 1,431 children benefitted from level seven supports. There has been a decrease this year, unfortunately, perhaps as a result of the ten-week waiting lists. Some 301 children have benefitted to date in 2017, which means that 1,272 fewer children are in the system this year. I wonder whether the timeframe is the reason for this.

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