Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies. On Deputy Costello's question, that is an issue that has come up a lot for me in my constituency too. Many people use childminders for lots of different reasons. It is the view of Government that we should include childminders in the early education and childcare structure and that people should be able to get the subsidies if they use a childminder but my understanding is that to do that they have to be registered with Tusla for good reasons around quality and child protection. We cannot be subsidising an unregistered childminder. We are trying to get that right to make it easier for childminders to get on the register and, therefore, easier for parents to get the subsidy. We will keep working that. The Deputy has my assurance on that.

On the taxis, I am not aware of any plans to allow people to sell on their licences. That has consequences too. I am glad to hear Deputy Boyd Barrett is advocating, once again, on behalf of taxi drivers. The Deputy is a strong advocate for taxi drivers. It is one of the reasons I was so surprised to see in the Deputy's document that he believed some of them were in league with Fianna Fáil and part of this conspiracy to overthrow-----

See this speech in context