James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)
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77. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs her plans to ensure quality and safety in childcare providers in County Wexford; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [43105/19]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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My Department has made significant strides over the last number of years in progressing the quality agenda both nationally and locally. These include, for example:-

- We have introduced a minimum qualification requirement in law which ensures that all staff must have at least a Level 5 qualification in early childhood education and care.

- We have incentivised the recruitment of graduates and 25% of the workforce now have degrees in early childhood education and care 

- We have established the “Better Start” Quality Development Service that provides mentoring and training to services all across the country.

- We continue to provide a Learner Fund Bursary and Continuous Professional Development payments to help the workforce upskill themselves and we have funded the provision of training in the areas such as the curriculum and inclusion. 

- We have expanded and strengthened the Inspectorate, and the number of inspections carried out by Tusla each year is nearly double what it was 5 years ago.

- We have created a register of providers, and given Tusla the power to deregister providers and to attach conditions to their registration.

- We have introduced “education-focused inspections” for the ECCE programme that are carried out by the Department of Education and Skills on behalf of my Department.

- The staff and Boards of 30 City and County Childcare Committees - including Wexford County Childcare Committee - assist my Department in ensuring that schemes and other initiatives we operate nationally meet local need. 

- We have introduced regulation of school age childcare for the first time.

- We are currently consulting on a draft Childminding Action Plan which sets out how we propose  to regulate the childminding sector and open up a myriad of supports to the sector to help address affordability, access and quality.

Following the recent broadcast of the RTÉ investigation, Behind Closed Doors, I wrote to the Chair of Tusla to ask what additional powers the Tusla Early Years Inspectorate  might need. Following Tusla’s reply, my Department is now examining legislative options, which may include mechanisms to inform parents of inspection findings at an earlier stage, to require services to display prominently their inspection status, and to alert parents in relation to the operation of unregistered services.

Additional powers for Tusla must form part of a multi-faceted approach that also includes: movement towards the establishment of a professional regulator; additional training for those working in the sector, with a renewed focus on the child protection training that is already under way; strengthened advisory supports before and after inspections; supporting the Garda Vetting process for the sector; and additional information for parents.

In short, we need to keep strengthening the quality agenda we have been successfully pursuing over recent years. Many of the actions we need to take are set out in First 5, our Whole-of-Government Strategy for Babies, Young Children and their Families which I published last year.