Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats)
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1699. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if she will report on the promised assessment of the economic costing of child care services; and the timeframe for completion of this work. [38996/17]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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I understand that the Deputy is referring to the 'Independent Review of the Cost of Delivering Quality Childcare' which will be commissioned in the coming weeks. Once commissioned there will be a 10-month deadline to deliver findings. Officials in my Department have been scoping the research that will be involved and preparing terms of reference for the study. In this regard a Request for Tenders (RFT) was issued on 4 August. The independent review seeks to: analyse the current costs of providing childcare in Ireland and factors that impact on those costs; develop a model of the unit cost/costs of providing childcare that allows analysis of policy changes and variation in cost-drivers, including the potential impact of increased professionalisation; provide an objective, high level market analysis of the childcare sector in Ireland, including analysis of fee levels charged to parents; and provide a range of outputs as specified in the Request for Tenders.

It is anticipated that the independent review will be a key input in informing future decisions on policy development and funding of childcare schemes, including both the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) free pre-school programme and the Affordable Childcare Scheme, and will finally help us build a sustainable quality childcare sector in Ireland.