Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

As many parents will contest, when they find someone to look after their children, they want them to spend their time looking after their children and not dealing with administrative issues. Many people have come to me about problems with this system. One provider said she was discussing an issue where her bank details had been pulled, which made a particularly stressful period even more stressful. She said all of that would have been so much easier if someone had just answered the phone and that it could have been sorted out in real-time. She said that emails are taking five to six days for a reply and they may not even be able to help the issue when they do reply. She said that for weeks she kept getting emails saying the issue had been resolved when it had not. That is not acceptable. This issue has been raised over the past number of months with the Department. We need to support those providers, particularly at this time, and make sure that the systems we expect them to engage with are up to scratch and that they do the job they are meant to do.

See this speech in context