Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
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No. The Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, is not too far away I am sure.

Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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I move amendment No. 1:

In page 9, between lines 27 and 28, to insert the following: “(2) The risk referred to in subsection (1) means a risk greater than the risk facing children generally, when being adequately taken care of in a private home.”.

Section 11 states:

The Principal Act is amended by the insertion of the following section after section 58J: “58JA. (1) Where an authorised person is of the opinion, following the exercise of any of his or her powers under section 58J relating to a premises in which a registered provider is providing a prescribed early years service, that there is an issue of significant concern that is of such a nature that if it persists it will, or is likely to, pose a risk of harm to a child attending the service, he or she may issue a notice (in this Part referred to as an ‘improvement notice’).

The Labour Party amendment seeks to insert a new line that states, "The risk referred to in subsection (1) means a risk greater than the risk facing children generally, when being adequately taken care of in a private home." The justification for the amendment is to make a distinction between what is a formal childcare setting, operated on a community, for profit or not-for-profit basis, and a childcare setting that is a private home. I am repeating the points I made on Second Stage in that I am seeking proportionality for how any regulations that will be devised will be actually applied. We know that there are issues in respect of a childminder minding a child or children in his or her, and it is predominantly "her", home. If regulations are too strident, they may have a chilling effect. When an inspectorate is set up, and it is decided that all sorts of notices have to be put up and all sorts of modifications made to a person's home, it may act as a deterent to that person continuing in the sector that is the childminding sector per se.

I have no qualms whatsoever regarding what the legislation seeks to do as regards the safeguarding of children, and the issuance of notices and improvement notices, where glaring issues arise from an inspection. Nobody would be against any of that. I ask that common sense prevails and that the State, or Tusla the Child and Family Agency through its inspectorate, does not become so officious that it seeks to impose upon the childminding sector the same set of regulations that adhere to the formal setting of early years providers or childcare facilities. That is merely the justification for the amendment. I know it will be rejected but I ask for some further words of comfort from the Minister that a distinction will be made between the role of a childminder in society and that of an early years provider or childcare facility, such that it will not be always possible for somebody to make the types of modifications that are required. We do not want radical modifications to people's private homes where they are registered with the Child and Family Agency. We want common sense to prevail. We do not want the State bearing down too heavily and disturbing that relationship.

Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Ceann Comhairle very much. I really appreciate that. It is a fantastic opportunity but I have to say that I will miss working alongside my colleagues in the children's committee and the Minister. Even though we have not always agreed, we have always worked really constructively together.

With regard to the Bill, I have come in to support Deputy Sherlock's amendment. I have always used childminders. I have probably spoken about that. My youngest child is 13 today so I am getting out of that part of my life but childminders are vital. A great many roles and jobs are not 9 to 5 and so people really depend on childminders. The Bill will be great for parental choice and really good, well-qualified childminders will have the opportunity to get into the scheme but there are concerns about it. I support the amendment because, as we have discussed in the past, it is a very different sector and a different type of service is being offered. While child protection issues have been in the news too much for all of the wrong reasons recently and it is important to have really strong protections for children, it is about striking the right balance. It is a very different environment. A person's home is a very personal space.

I support the amendment. I was not here for the Second Stage debate last week but I hope that there will be ongoing consultation with the sector by way of actual meetings. I know consultation documents are sometimes sent out for people to fill in but there is nothing like sitting down face to face with a stakeholder group representing a sector to hear that sector's concerns. As with anything new, there may be teething problems and such meetings are the best place to iron all of that out. I support the amendment and hope the Minister will accept it or, as Deputy Sherlock has suggested, look again at that section.

Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats)
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I agree with a certain amount of the sentiment behind this amendment although I do not entirely agree with the wording. I will repeat a point I made on Second Stage, which is that, while it is sometimes a result of need, people very often consciously choose a childminder because they like the informality and the lower minder-child ratio. It is often viewed as being more homely than a congregated setting. That point needs to be respected and taken account of. As I said on Second Stage, it is a difficult balance to strike. I fully accept that. However, I do not believe the regulation should be too heavy-handed. I heard the points the Minister made in summing up on Second Stage and he noted the point I had made. One of the ways of addressing it is to ensure that there is good consultation with childcare providers in the drawing up of regulations and so on. I hope that will be taken into consideration because there is a very real quality that people seek out in homely domestic settings. We should not lose that although we obviously must have regard to the need for safety. I ask the Minister to bear that in mind. The best way of addressing it is probably through better consultation with childcare providers.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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I thank the Deputies for their contributions. I am not able to accept Deputy Sherlock's amendment but I hope that what I am about to say will explain why. The impact of what he is proposing and where he has located the amendment may be wider than he intends. Perhaps I can also provide some words of comfort.

As we recall from last week, the purpose of this Bill is twofold. One element is to ensure that Tusla's early years inspectorate has appropriate enforcement powers across all childcare settings and not just childminders. The second element is to remove the exemption from regulation for childminders under Part VIIA. The proposed amendment we are talking about covers all childcare settings. The section puts Tusla's enforcement pathway on a legislative footing and aims to deal with some of the limitations of the existing regulatory and enforcement powers of the early years inspectorate. On Second Stage, there was broad support for strengthening the powers of the early years inspectorate, particularly in those very rare but really serious cases where we need to empower the early years inspectorate to act more quickly.

On the Deputy's amendment, the reference to a risk of harm in the amendment I am bringing forward is proceeded by reference to "significant concern". It is about the persistent nature of the risk. It cannot be read in isolation. These elements must be present before an improvement notice is issued. It cannot just be a risk. It must be a risk of significant concern. An improvement notice can only be given where "there is an issue of significant concern that is of such a nature that if it persists it will, or is likely to, pose a risk of harm to a child attending the service". An issue that is not of significant concern and that is not likely to persist could not give rise to an improvement notice. That is the standard we are setting.

In our view, the level of risk in a private home is not an appropriate standard for assessing risk in very different contexts. While it might be relevant when assessing the level of risk in a childminder's home, it is not relevant when assessing risk or ways of reducing risk in a large crèche or after-school service. Again, this section of the Bill relates to all early years services. Following the amendments to the definitions in the section, that will include preschool services, school-age services and childminders. Deputy Sherlock was probably seeking to make a distinction between childminders and other services but, as a result of how my amendment is structured and how his amendment fits into it, what he is proposing will reduce the standard for all childcare services. I do not think we should be using the standard of the average risk in a house when dealing with large early years services. For those reasons, I am not in a position to accept that amendment.

During the Second Stage debate, we talked about the Bill, the changes it will bring about and the regulations. The regulations are obviously linked but they are a separate document. They have been subject to quite a lengthy consultation process. On Second Stage last week, I said very clearly that there will be changes to the regulations. It is not a pro forma consultation and there will be changes. After last week's Second Stage debate, my officials met with Childminding Ireland and went through each of the regulations in detail. From what I have heard, it was a good meeting. We said that we would be flagging some changes relating to some issues and we were able to give clarity to Childminding Ireland on others and to clear up some misconceptions. Yesterday, I met Childminding Ireland myself. We did the same thing. We went through all of the various regulations. Again, that was a good meeting and we were able to give clarifications there. We are looking for some further engagement, perhaps by way of a direct focus group with childminders picked by Childminding Ireland and some site visits. We will literally go to a childminder, show him or her the rules and ask how they are going to work around the house.

The Department absolutely wants childminders to continue to operate. They are an extremely important part of the wider offering of childcare services within our country. I am very clear that they are distinct from centre-based services for various reasons including flexibility, lower ratios and often being the only option for parents in rural areas. We want to promote them in the sector. I was talking to Dr. Bill Maxwell, who is in the childminding regulatory space in Scotland. We were talking about the experience there. Childminding has been regulated in Scotland for many years. There has recently been an exodus of childminders in Scotland. I asked whether that was linked to the introduction of regulations but was told that it was not and that they had been regulated for a long time. Dr. Maxwell pointed to the fact that, in Scotland, the State has put a lot of money into centre-based childcare but has not been able to put it into childminding. We are doing the same here. We are making centre-based childcare a lot more affordable for parents. The changes we are making here are designed to allow childminders to avail of the NCS as well. It is important that those parents are able to benefit from the affordability measures as well.

There is a great deal of fear out there. The impact of these regulations has been misconstrued and exaggerated in many circumstances. That is why we are engaged in very intensive engagement with Childminding Ireland. I recognise that Childminding Ireland is a great organisation. It does not and cannot speak for every childminder. We are doing our best to engage and provide clear information in the form of clarification where there is misinformation, but we will also be making changes to enable us to maintain the flexibility and maintain the difference between childminding and centre-based childcare and do what I think all Deputies who contributed on Second Stage have agreed to do. Most of the output of that will be seen in the regulations. It will not be seen in this Bill.

Deputy Fitzmaurice raised the specific issue of the number of children a childminder can look after. We discussed that yesterday. We have a little more work to do on it, so I do not have an answer for him. However, I have committed to continuing to engage with him on that point. I hope that has in some way addressed some of the issues he flagged there.

If the Leas-Cheann Comhairle will indulge me for a moment more, at the meeting of the Oireachtas joint committee yesterday, I paid tribute the Chairperson, Deputy Funchion. I am delighted to be able to do that now in person and thank her for her work as Cathaoirleach. I said yesterday that her focus has always been on the policy outcomes. She has never let party politics get in the way of delivering good legislative processes and good reports from that committee. It is widely regarded across the committee that her leadership has been extremely fair and open. Some of the pre-legislative scrutiny processes the committee engaged in were challenging. The Deputy did amazing work in facilitating survivors and former residents of mother and baby homes to be able to give their input, especially into the Bill dealing with Tuam. She will be a great loss to this House, but I have no doubt she will continue her co-operation and hard work in the European Parliament and be a great representative for Ireland South.

Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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Thanks so much.

Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I join the Minister in congratulating Deputy Funchion. I wish her the best of luck.

I thank the Minister for the engagement so far. I support Deputy Sherlock's amendment. It is reasonable. Every one of us here is trying to ensure that childminding is done right everywhere. As I said to the Minister last week, people have a fear of Tusla coming into their houses. On top of that, the Minister referred to the Scottish report, which I have read. It said there were problems in the rural areas once the new legislation was brought in. Many people left the childminding sector, for one reason or another, and this created many problems. Under the regulations or whatever way it has to be done, I ask that the Minister give an exemption for up to three kids. As I said, my kids were reared with a person over the road and, God above, they minded them better than we would have done ourselves. They went with them everywhere; they were integrated into the family. If that person was doing that today, and they were going to be regulated, the fear of it would be one thing, as has been pointed out. In addition, these people are local individuals that you know and trust. I am asking the Minister to address this by means of the regulations. He has heard it from people and he should not have someone dictating to him within the Department trying to drive it so everything is going to be the same in childminding whether it is 500 kids or three children. If you pick someone up or down the road who you know, you will know them well and you will trust them. I do not want to see those people being basically forced out. I wish the Minister the best of luck with the leadership contest and everything, but it is in years to come that we will see the knock-on effects and the problems. It will be some parent who will not be able to go to work. There were no creches when my children were growing up, and if not for the good people we had near us who minded those kids neither I nor my wife could not have gone out to work. That is not the Ireland we want to set up. We want to give equal opportunity to everybody to be able to go to work. I ask the Minister to do that and I support the amendment.

Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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I take the points made by the Minister. It is the right of every person in this House to put forward amendments and the right of every other person to comment on the quality or otherwise of those amendments. There is a timescale in which to put forward amendments. If people think they can put forward a better amendment than this one, let them do so.

While I have the floor, I pay tribute to Deputy Funchion. She is an extremely good colleague. We are losing her to another forum. I extend my congratulations to her. I count her as a great friend and colleague, and she has been an excellent Chair of the committee. We have put through some very difficult legislation and we deal with very difficult subject matter. The Deputy has always dealt with matters in the most diplomatic and fair-minded way, so I want to pay tribute to her and congratulate her on her new role.

There is a situation I do not want to see. If I look at an early years inspectorate regulatory report, matters such as infection control are covered. I have a specific report in respect of a certain facility. I do not want to reveal its location. The report states that staff in both the baby and toddler nappy-changing rooms were observed wearing disposable gloves and aprons for each nappy change and that nappies were placed in nappy sacks and disposed of in sealed, lidded, pedal-operated bins. That is typical of a formal setting, but not a setting that is a home. In the context of the amendment, I would argue that sometimes one proposes an amendment on the basis one wants to make a political point and that is entirely legitimate as well. Again, I am just arguing for proportionality and common sense to be applied where there is a regulatory regime overseeing a home which is a private home. I do not want to see the disturbance of the dynamic and the trust that exists between a parent, a child and the childminder. We all know here what that brings to every community and the need that exists for it. However, I have decided I will not press the amendment because I note what the Minister has said. He has given us some words of comfort, which is all I wanted at this point. I felt the best way to do that would be to table an amendment.

The Minister has said he has met Childminding Ireland and that it has engaged with the departmental officials. I take that in good faith. I hope the making of regulations, subject to the changes the Minister has spoken about, would by its very nature be an iterative, ongoing process and that the regulations will not be written on tablets of stone and handed down. When they are handed down I hope Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, does not interpret those in a most officious way. I am hopeful, knowing the inspectorate and the people who operate it as I do, that they will be fair-minded in their approach.

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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The Bill will be sent to the Seanad.