Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator. The service referred to by the Senator is participating in the CCS programme, which is implemented by my Department. The objective of the subvention programme is to make child care accessible and affordable for disadvantaged and low-income families. Targeted payments are made to support parents who qualify on the basis of their social welfare status or income profile. Those who qualify for the maximum support under the programme can have a maximum of €95 deducted from the overall weekly charge for each eligible child. The balance of the weekly charge is expected to be contributed by the parent. The subvention payment and the parental contribution are intended to meet the overall cost of providing the service. To determine the level of subvention funding to be allocated to each service, parental returns are submitted annually following the commencement of the school year. It is important to point out that as the returns provide details of the PPS number of both the qualifying parent and the child enrolled in the service, these data are available as verification. These PPS numbers are verified by the Department of Social Protection to confirm the parent's and child's eligibility. If discrepancies arise at the verification stage, the issue is brought to the attention of the services and clarification is provided. Where no discrepancies arise, payments are made that reflect the level of service of which the child is availing and the profile of the parent. Obviously, there is considerable back-and-forth communication in this regard with many services during the course of the year.

To ensure the proper implementation of the child care support programmes, Pobal, which assists my Department with the implementation of the child care programmes, undertakes on-site compliance visits - inspections, really - with participating services. One objective of the visits is to ensure that eligible parents receive the correct cost reduction in their child care fees and that the terms and conditions that govern the child care programmes are adhered to. Pobal also provides support and guidance to the services to promote their sustainability.

As the Senator rightly stated, following a compliance visit by Pobal to the Muintearas service in 2010, the service was deemed to be non-compliant with the requirements of the subvention programme. In follow-up visits in 2011, Pobal investigated the attendance records and patterns at the service and subsequent to this, a detailed record of the actual attendance at the service was compiled to establish the correct record for children registered and regularly attending the service. When this record was checked against the information that had been returned to my Department by the service on the parental returns submitted, it was found that there was a significant discrepancy with regard to the actual profile of the children in attendance. It was clearly evident from the report that the subvention programme was not being implemented in accordance with the requirements. It was agreed, following discussions at that time in 2011 between my Department, Pobal and the management at the service, that the excess payments would have to be returned to the Department. A repayment plan was agreed whereby scheduled payments would be made to Pobal over a five-year period, ending in January 2016, with the annual repayment amount being transferred to Pobal in January of each year. Muintearas has been meeting the agreed timelines in the repayment plan.

In March this year, Muintearas approached Pobal to extend the period of the repayment plan to September 2016. The reason for this request is to ease the cashflow pressure on the service in the earlier months of the year and to spread the repayments more evenly over the year. Following consultation between Pobal and the Department, it has been agreed to permit this change to the repayment plan. This will see Muintearas making three equal payments each year in January, May and September to repay what it owes, as opposed to one larger annual payment in January of each year, which appears reasonable.

In response to the Senator's question on whether Muintearas is complying with the recommendations in the report, the answer is "Yes".

A key goal of my Department is to ensure that such community services remain sustainable in order that the local community has access to child care services. If issues can be dealt with, it is not the practice to refer matters to the Garda or the DPP. If, however, there were issues that it was thought warranted a Garda investigation or if there was a lack of co-operation with Pobal's actions, the matter would be looked at again. I am satisfied that Pobal's compliance activity continues to be an essential component of the operation of the child care schemes and that my Department and Pobal will continue to co-operate to ensure high standards of compliance and to support the sustainability of services, especially community services.