Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I will be brief. I welcome the Bill. It is important that we have a codification of or legislative architecture around the system of child care support. I acknowledge the work that the Minister has done. We must likewise acknowledge the role of the Committee on Children and Youth Affairs in its pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill. I also acknowledge the role of the committee's current and previous members in getting us to this point.

I wish to highlight a number of minor issues. We will have an opportunity to discuss them further and have a greater interaction with the Minister on Committee Stage. Barnardos has, through its policy officer, raised a couple of issues with me regarding sections 7, 14 and 15. I believe that it has written to all of us highlighting these issues and I would be surprised if it had not been in touch with the Minister's office and staff regarding them as well, given that it is an effective lobby group.

I seek clarification from the Minister concerning the IT architecture or infrastructure that will be set up. In September 2017, the Joint Committee on Children and Youth Affairs received a report on the measures that would be put in place in respect of the ICT approval process. From a user's perspective, that process is a cornerstone of the scheme's future success.

According to the note that we received, the main ICT development of the affordable childcare scheme, ACS, was subject to the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer peer review group, PRG. The PRG had reviewed the business case and approval of same was received on 21 September, subject to some recommendations that the Minister's Department was satisfied it could meet. The next stage of the PRG process was to be the presentation of the request for tender for the procurement of the ICT development. The request for tender, including detailed functional requirements, was submitted to the PRG - acronyms, acronyms - and, according to the note, a meeting had been scheduled to discuss it.

That was September. This evening, and if the House will bear with me while I find her speech among my other papers, the Minister stated:

The development of the IT system, which is being carried out in close co-operation with the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer, is well under way and I have approved the publication of a request for tender for the IT system. While any delay is regrettable, the changes we introduced last September, which are broadly on a par with the supports that are planned for the affordable child care scheme, mean that more than 66,000 children and their families are already benefiting from increased child care subsidies.

I want to reconcile the two positions in my mind. Perhaps the Minister will revert to the House and clarify whether she believes that the IT system as it is being rolled out has the confidence of end users and whether its tyres have been kicked by them. The Minister and other Members will know that we have all received a considerable number of representations on this piece of architecture. If there is to be public confidence in the scheme, the ICT architecture has to be spot on.

I tabled a parliamentary question to the Minister last week. It will be a flagrant use of an opportunity, but I will read the question now: "To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the status of a child vis-à-visaccess to the ECCE scheme that will reach three years of age on 18 January 2019." I put this question because it is being asked of me, not just by one source, but by a multitude of sources. It goes to the heart of the new scheme in the form of the age criteria as we approach 2019. Although changes to the eligibility criteria were announced in the budget, questions are already being asked of parents. In one parent's case, the relevant date will be 18 January 2019. If a new scheme is being designed and placed on a statutory footing, questions will be asked about the sustainability of its funding. The language of the legislation has to be neutral in terms of funding, but will the Minister clarify this matter?

The committee made a number of recommendations at the pre-legislative scrutiny stage. Across a number of headings, the Oireachtas Library and Research Service's Bills digest put green, amber and red lights around some of those recommendations as well as the Bill's contents, for example, budget ceilings under head 1, the needs of vulnerable children under head 3, approved providers under head 6, and the issues of renting out the family home and family income supplement, FIS. A number of matters have been red-lighted when benchmarked against the committee's pre-legislative process. The Minister and her officials might have regard to the Oireachtas Library and Research Service's report and revert to us on some of the highlighted issues.

I wish to address the reconciliation between the FIS, the working family payment and the ACS. The Minister has referred to this matter, but perhaps we could have further elaboration on the result of the interaction between her Department and the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection as regards the sharing of data about people who are on one of the relevant schemes and the permutations if they sign up to the ACS.

These are headline issues at this stage. We will have a chance to delve deeper and submit amendments on Committee Stage. I acknowledge the Minister's role in getting the legislation to this point. Broadly speaking, there is support for the Bill. There will be further questions regarding the scheme's roll-out but, speaking on behalf of the Labour Party, we support the Bill's progress to Committee Stage.

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