James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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208. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if she will review the workings of the affordable child care scheme to allow for full crèche entitlement (details supplied) for those attending on non-consecutive days; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [42002/17]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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Childcare provisions in my Department operate to support parents to access employment and to meet the needs and well-being of children.

It is considered to be in the best interests of children to have regular and consistent patterns of childcare and our systems are set up with this in mind.

In certain exceptional circumstances, we do allow for unusual arrangements, but as currently constructed we cannot facilitate all possible permutations of childcare. Our system operates on the basis of fixed weekly patterns. This may be something that my Department can review for future programme cycles as unfortunately, it is not possible to make major system changes after the operational commencement of a childcare programme.