Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The logic of what the Minister has said is that in the long term this will morph into a public model and that will provide a greater element of control. Within that, pay and conditions can be dealt with, possibly to a greater degree than in the context of a JLC. Beyond that, a roadmap can be provided for people in terms of a career path.

I will digress slightly because a number of people have spoken about the NCS. We accept that it works as a job activation tool. There are difficulties with regard to disadvantaged children. In fairness to the Minister, he has had a fair amount of interaction with groups. I hope in November we have a different pot of money and solution to paying for early childhood and after-school care for disadvantaged children. In the interim, there is still the difficulty of Tusla. I accept most people do not want to deal with Tusla, but if we are going to use it we probably need a directive from the Minister to Tusla so that it can provide a roadmap to individual groups which can then use Tusla as a referral service. I accept the system is far from perfect, and it is to be hoped November will offer solutions.

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