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

I welcome our guests in the Public Gallery as well and I hope they find their trip to the Oireachtas very interesting. I thank Senator Buttimer for raising this important issue, for advocating on behalf of the parents of the children attending the Morning Star preschool, and for emphasising the importance of this early education for those children as well as the support it provides for their parents.

Tusla is an independent statutory regulator for the sector. It is wholly responsible for the registration of all early learning and care and school-age childcare services. Approximately 4,000 early learning and care services and 2,200 school-age childcare services are registered with and inspected by Tusla. While my Department is responsible for the legislation governing the sector and we do work closely with Tusla, obviously the implementation of the regulations is solely a matter for Tusla. I am also restricted from intervening in specific cases.

It is a legal requirement under the Child Care Act 1991 regulations for those proposing to open an early years service to submit an application for registration with Tusla at least three months before it is proposed to commence operations. This is to allow sufficient time for the processing and approval of such applications, in line with the relevant statutory requirements. It is the responsibility of the providers of early years services to ensure they have all the documentation required in place, including fire certificates and planning compliance documents. Providers should also ensure they are ready for Tusla's fit-for-purpose inspection, if required. Registration of early years services can be granted only where Tusla is satisfied that the premises, operation and location of the services pose no unmanaged risk to children. We can all understand why those regulations need to be adhered to.

Tusla cannot process applications that do not contain all the required documents, but it does inform providers who submit incomplete applications of any missing documents. The service then has an extra ten days to submit any outstanding documents. If it is not possible to provide the documentation sought in that timeframe, the application is closed. Open applications that are not being updated by providers are a drain on the resources of the early years inspectorate registration team, and this is made clear to all services seeking to apply for registration with Tusla. Therefore, although the onus does rest with prospective service providers to ensure their applications for registration are fully completed on submission, the inspectorate does work closely with applicants to help new services to open as soon as possible and to allow existing services to grow their capacity. The requirements and associated timelines for the processing of new registrations to ensure opening by September 2022 have been clearly communicated to the sector. In the interests of having a fair and transparent policy, therefore, Tusla will only review applications in the order they are received. This is in line with the organisation's registration policy.

My understanding of this case from Tusla is that some documentation was missing when the original application was submitted in August. Some of those documents remain outstanding. A revised application for registration was received on 30 September, however, and that is now being progressed based on Tusla's registration process. Therefore, it is important to say the application is now in train. It is hoped all relevant documents will now have been submitted. I suggest, though, that the management of the preschool double-check with the Tusla inspectorate and the city and county childcare committee in Cork that all those documents have been received to ensure there is no delay in this application being addressed and that it can be processed. It is to be hoped we will soon be able to see this facility for young people in the area reopened for them to resume their ECCE programme.