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

The Deputy is the third to raise issues with the hive system today. Again, I acknowledge there have been problems. I believe some of these problems are specific to the Covid-19 context we are in, but I also acknowledge that the response could have been better. We have to learn from that for the registration scheme next year.

The information technology system used to administer childcare schemes, the early years platform, is new. It was designed to meet the current and future needs of administering the various schemes in my Department. The hive was used for national childcare scheme applications from last year. Multiple stakeholder and interest groups were consulted in its development. We are seeing incremental improvements in it. Like any new system, there have been flaws. The fact that these flaws have arisen in a time when childcare providers were working to repurpose their facilities to deal with covid and the various issues created by a new registration amounted to the perfect storm. I understand and know it has created stress for providers. Where Deputy McAuliffe or any other Deputy see specific issues brought to their attention by providers, my Department and I will be happy to act to address them.

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