Caít Keane (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Like other Senators, I congratulate Senator Terry Brennan. The former President, Mary McAleese, spoke about building bridges. Senator Terry Brennan is a member of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly and is involved in North-South relations. Senator Mary White was mentioned as well in this regard. Building bridges between North and South is of great importance for the country.

I rise today on the child care issue. I go back a long way with Montessori education. I was not involved in the actual child care section but in the Montessori section. I was on the expert working group on child care set up in 1991 or 1992. For years a cry has been going out from the child care sector for proper education and training for staff in child care. This is a serious issue. There is absolutely no excuse for what happened last night. I was crying last night watching the television. I was absolutely upset. No one could look at that programme and say what was happening to those poor children in the crèches was acceptable. It was absolute abuse. There is no excuse for that at all and there can be none.

It has been found that in 75% of inspections carried out the HSE regulations have been breached. It was on foot of a HSE examination that RTE went in because those crèches-----