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

I recognise the Deputy’s engagement with me in recent weeks on this issue. I appreciate it and know he and other Cork East Deputies are committed to finding a solution. He has described clearly the dual catastrophe so many families are facing in terms of the loss of the home and now the loss of childcare facilities.

I am aware the Cork childcare committee has been engaging with the impacted services to ensure all assistance is in place to support the families and the services affected by the flooding. The childcare committee is proactively engaging with early learning childcare services to identify unused capacity and explore the potential for services to increase capacity to meet the early learning and childcare needs of families in the immediate and wider surrounding areas. This engagement will support referral of affected families where capacity is identified.

Families are being encouraged to contact the Cork county childcare committee directly to gain support in meeting their particular childcare needs. All families impacted by the floods can have their child's registration for ECCE transferred to a new provider. Funding will not be affected. Similarly, any families currently registered with the NCS will be able to transfer their childcare identifier code key, CHICK, to a new provider. In normal circumstances, people need to give four weeks' notice for this, but that requirement will not be applied in these circumstances. This means parents will be able to start claiming under the NCS as soon as a new provider registers their CHICK.

The safety and protection of children remains the first priority in the early learning and childcare sector. This is achieved through the registration and inspection of early years services by Tusla, which is the independent statutory regulator for the sector. Registration of early years services can be granted only where Tusla is satisfied that the premises, and their operation and location, pose no unmanaged risk to children. Tusla has been working closely with the local childcare committee in the areas impacted by the recent flooding. It will engage with impacted services in those areas to help them to reopen their service in a safe and suitable premises and location.

I acknowledge the Deputy's statement that he has not received a response from Tusla to his query. I will follow up on that and make sure the agency gets back to him. I will also look for clarity from the childcare committee and from Tusla's early years inspectorate that all due haste is being given to ensuring potential new venues are inspected. Those inspections must be done. We cannot put children into an unsafe place, even in desperate circumstances. My Department cannot stand over that. Where there is an emergency situation, however, I am sure we can move things rapidly. I will work with the Deputy to achieve that.

The Deputy made some wider points about capacity. I brought a memorandum to the Cabinet yesterday on the measures we are taking to improve capacity nationally, which we will launch later in the week. A key element will be the capital programme, which provides €15 million for investment in new childcare services across the country next year. The memorandum also covers the planning issue whereby developers are either not building a childcare facility along with the houses, or they are building it and, lo and behold, it looks exactly like a house and, three months later, they come back with a planning application to change its use to housing, or they say there is no demand because they will not let any childcare service make a bid to open a facility. A whole load of games are being played. Last year, I had a good meeting with county planners in different locations all over the country at which I asked them for their experience of this. We are working with the Department of housing to revise the 2001 regulations on the delivery of childcare facilities alongside new housing developments. Thousands of housing units will be built under Housing for All. We need appropriate childcare facilities to be delivered as well.

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