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

I will address the first couple of issues there. As I said to some of the Deputy's colleagues, I appreciate that childcare is not yet fully affordable. That is because of decades of underinvestment in childcare. Even though we started from a very low base, we have 170% more investment in the development of a systematic effort over the last couple of years - to look at ways in which we can enable a financial entitlement to subsidisation of childcare for families, which we have now, and build a capacity, as well as provide the providers with the qualifications required to offer the quality that we require. That is going on.

On the second issue, I, too, have that concern on the raising of fees that meets the subsidisation. A certain increase has happened since we have been monitoring this, but costs have increased too. I will actively discuss this concern with my Department over these coming weeks.

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