Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Absolutely. All the pieces of work the Department is undertaking at the moment are really valuable and will give us that evidence base to design that long-term future. Comparisons are often made with Nordic countries and other European countries where a much more substantial amount of State investment goes into the sector. Again, that is building on things that have been ongoing for decades. We are not starting from scratch, but after ten years that is the only context in which childcare is developing in Ireland. It has always been as a response to a problem for this sector or that sector. Perhaps we have not had the opportunity to take that step back and ask how this is operating. The operational model, which looks at the administrative infrastructure, interests very few people - let us be honest - but it is important we scrutinise the role of my Department and of the 30 city and county childcare committees around the country. There should be careful scrutiny of how the whole apparatus operates together. It is to be hoped that by the middle of next year, when we get this information, we will have a very significant evidence base around a wide range of areas on which to build that future vision.

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