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

That is entirely untrue, just to put that on the record. What is important to say is that I have engaged very extensively with all the organisations in the early years sector. I meet them regularly in the forum. I have, on many occasions this year and last year, met the particular group protesting outside the Dáil today. I see the Deputy has been briefed with the report. I have not had the opportunity to read it. I will of course look through it. Essentially, though, as I said in response to Deputy Tóibín, we put an additional €259 million into the sector last year. That will grow this year to €287 million, and we have allocated a section of that towards those small sessional services. What is being proposed, bringing the ECCE capitation up to €120, will benefit the big providers. They will be the ones who will benefit most from that, not the small services. So the solutions being put forward are solutions that will benefit only the big services.

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