Marie Sherlock (Dublin Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for that reply. I had not intended going into the details of the particular situation I raised with the Department last week, but just to be clear, the management is meeting with parents tonight. The meeting is not with staff. In fact, that takes a whole other week. It is perhaps a reflection of the disrespect to staff in this particular matter. The other crucial point is that the Department has been misinformed. The reality is that there are people who can only accept an afternoon service and what they are being offered is a morning service. It is important to put that on the record.

Returning to the wider point about the powers of intervention, for many of the brilliant services out there the discussion we are having this evening is largely irrelevant. They are brilliantly run and if there is a difficulty they engage with all the supports provided by Pobal and the Department. However, a few do not and the current set-up is a stark reminder that we have a lot of public money going into a privately-run sector. Indeed, the Minister of State said that the decision by a service to close is ultimately a private business matter with which the Department cannot interfere. The question must be asked as to whether that is good enough. We are calling on the Minister to instigate change here because with the right to State funding there must be a responsibility on the provider and on the State. No child should suffer a gap in early years education. That is what is going to happen here if that afternoon session closes, not for every child but for some children. It is not good enough or acceptable that the State and the Department of children would stand by and let this happen. There needs to be a much greater look at the governance of how early years services are run but also at the responsibilities of the Department in terms of being able to ensure the continued provision of early years education across every community in this country.

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