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

I do not have specific figures in terms of how that will impact. We just announced it last week. I have spoken to one or two child care providers in my constituency who were able to secure some of these students so it is making a difference and alleviating some of the real pressures spoken about by the Deputy.

This month, we are going to have two very significant announcements, namely the workforce planning announced and published the final report of the expert group on the funding model. Many Deputies here have waited for both of these for a long time. These areas have been two real focuses of the early years section of my Department since I became Minister. We sought to enact one part in the budget in terms of core funding and that was very much influenced by the expert group. It is important that, even though the expert group was not finalised, we worked as quickly as possible to start to implement one of its most important recommendations. We did not wait until budget 2023 before starting to take action. There will be some significant announcements in the next week or two in this area.

See this speech in context