Dan Neville (Limerick West, Fine Gael)
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Question 252: To ask the Minister for Health and Children if she will introduce a quality mark for crèches following worried patients complaints to the Health Service Executive revealing a series of shocking incidents in childcare facilities. [21860/07]

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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Pre-school services are subject to statutory regulation and inspection in accordance with Part VII of the Child Care Act 1991. The Child Care (Pre-School Services) Regulations 1996 and (Amendment) Regulations 1997, which were introduced to give effect to this provision, were replaced with effect from 3 September 2007 by the revised and improved Child Care (Pre-School Services) (No. 2) Regulations 2006. The Regulations apply to pre-schools, playgroups, day nurseries, crèches, childminders looking after more than three children and other similar services which cater for children under six years of age.

The Health Service Executive (HSE) has statutory responsibility for implementing the Regulations and services are required to notify to the Pre-School Services Inspectorate. In addition to an advisory role in assisting pre-school services to comply with the Statutory requirements, the Inspectorate also carries out annual inspections of pre-school services to ensure that they comply with the regulatory standards. With the coming into effect of the revised 2006 Regulations, new arrangements have also been put in place by the HSE to meet the commitment given to standardisation of the inspection process and to making the outcome of inspections publicly available. It is considered that the increased transparency of the new system will provide further protection for parents and their children. In addition, a Working Group on Standards has been set up under the Office of the Minister for Children and will examine a best practice approach to developing qualitative standards to assist the inspection process as well as the more general advisory role of the Inspectorate.