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

One of the key reasons we have linked the provision of core funding to services and the NCS is to ensure that we can get that agreement for the additional money being invested to go to pay staff. Without some element of conditionality regarding the money we are giving, we would not be able to guarantee that those enhanced levels of pay, that are being negotiated now, would actually be delivered to staff. Therefore, our mechanism in delivering on that is to link the NCS and core funding. To do otherwise would be to put at risk the opportunity to finally ensure that we can channel additional funding to delivering better pay for staff. We will, however, continue to look at the wider elements of the system.

As the Deputy is aware, in the review of childcare services, the expert group discussed the issue of there being some element of public provision and indicated that further examination of this aspect is worthwhile. That is also something I certainly agree with as well. In the context of the crisis we have right now, however, my focus has been on seeking to address those three big challenges in the existing system.

See this speech in context