I am glad to have this opportunity to raise this issue of the pilot scheme announced last week by the Central Bank last week for dealing with distressed mortgages. No Member would argue that such a scheme is not badly needed. It is, indeed, long overdue. However, one point that galls ordinary people most is not just the appalling behaviour of the banks prior to the crash, but their continued arrogance and tardiness in dealing with the aftermath, having been bailed out by the taxpayer.
Topical Issue Debate
Mortgage Arrears Proposals
However, on the face of it, this scheme would appear to be good news. As always, the devil is in the detail. The scheme has all the hallmarks of having been designed by the banks for the banks, as they have put themselves at the top of the queue to receive the lion's share of whatever debt can be recovered from distressed mortgages.
I ask Members to have their conversations outside the House.
Credit unions which have served the ordinary people so well over the years are being pushed back out of sight and out of mind and they will soon be out of pocket. It is immoral that the banks, which contributed hugely to the debt crisis we are in through reckless lending, should receive primary protection while community-based credit unions, which have consistently encouraged responsible saving and lending plans, will be thrown to the wolves along with credit card providers and back street moneylenders. I am not surprised that the Irish League of Credit Unions, ILCU, has rejected this proposal. Under the scheme, banks will receive 90% of available debt repayments while the credit unions will have to scrap it out with other unsecured creditors for the remaining 10%. There is no doubt we need to introduce a robust and fair scheme to deal with distressed mortgage holders but part of that plan must include a facility for mortgage write-downs and write-offs, where required.
The banks have been provided with the funds to do this. They must stop burying their heads in the sand and deal with the reality as we find it as a society. Only then can our entire banking and financial sector start to move forward again. Does the Minister of State agree that the scheme needs to be revisited? Will he communicate that to the Governor of the Central Bank in the interests of all of those who save with credit unions, work for credit unions and value the credit union system? Credit unions have traditionally lent on a prudential basis and behaved responsibly. Credit unions and their members deserve more than what is contained in the pilot proposals.
I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. I have been informed by the Central Bank that this initiative is being implemented to establish, on a test basis, an approach to deal with both secured and unsecured debt. This pilot scheme will take in a sample of approximately 750 cases where borrowers have debts with multiple lenders. To address this scenario, the Central Bank has commenced a process to facilitate a voluntary, co-ordinated approach among lenders to the resolution of multiple debts owed by distressed borrowers. An unsustainable debt position has been reached by many borrowers, which needs to be addressed for the benefit of both borrowers and lenders alike.
The Central Bank envisages that the participants in the pilot framework will be the main retail lending banks and the credit unions that have agreed to participate, as well as certain other unsecured lenders. This pilot framework contains a restructuring waterfall that will be applied to each borrower who agrees to participate to establish the most appropriate modification to put him or her on an affordable repayment path. The framework is expected to commence in June and will operate for three months, after which the results will be assessed to establish the effectiveness of the framework and to determine the appropriate next steps. To be eligible for the framework, a borrower must be co-operating with their lenders, as defined in the code of conduct on mortgage arrears. The framework will apply to borrowers experiencing financial difficulty but who have taken reasonable steps to maximise income and curtail expenditure. It is important to reassure borrowers in difficulty with their mortgage repayments that all existing protections afforded by the Central Bank's consumer protection code and code of conduct on mortgage arrears will continue to apply to participating borrowers.
The Central Bank is encouraging the involvement of all lenders in the process to ensure maximum effectiveness of this learning and information gathering pilot stage and it has a number of lenders engaged to date. The bank has written to all credit unions individually to invite them to participate in the pilot framework. It is confident that the pilot framework will offer outcomes that support borrowers and will allow the Central Bank to test and learn from this approach. It must be borne in mind that a key consideration in a decision to opt out by lenders will be that borrowers from these institutions cannot be part of the pilot framework to restructure their debt and cannot avail of the benefits that could be accessible to the borrower.
I am aware of the concerns expressed by the ILCU regarding the Central Bank initiative and its view that the arrangements under the Personal Insolvency Act should be applied to the resolution of multiple debts owed by distressed borrowers, including credit union members. While that regime will be available, the Central Bank pilot scheme will offer the opportunity for distressed borrowers, including participating credit union members, to resolve their debts without the need to enter into the formal statutory insolvency process. In this respect, it is important that, where possible, credit union members should not be left with a more limited range of options than that available to customers of other financial institutions. It is in this spirit that the Central Bank has written to all credit unions to make them aware of the pilot framework in order that the credit unions can decide whether participation is in the interests of their members, including those with distressed debts across multiple lenders. Credit unions have been invited by the Central Bank to nationwide information seminars on the pilot scheme to discuss its objectives and approach. The ILCU has been invited to attend at these sessions and to provide input. Notwithstanding its official stance on the pilot programme, the ILCU has played a constructive role in working with the Central Bank and other lenders to address this difficult issue and credit unions continue to have an important role to play in supporting distressed borrowers in resolving their problems.
The Central Bank initiatives in the mortgage arrears area, in particular the mortgage arrears targets initiative announced last March, and the recent announcement regarding the framework pilot on the development of a co-ordinated, holistic and voluntary approach by secured and unsecured lenders, is consistent with the overall approach of Government to deal with the mortgage arrears problem. In particular, the Government, while significantly modernising Ireland's bankruptcy and insolvency law and procedures, has also advocated and encouraged borrowers and lenders to address debt difficulties, where possible, on a bilateral and informal basis, and the recent Central Bank initiatives should underpin that process. Taken together, the framework is in place to enable banks to work with distressed homeowners to reach sustainable solutions for dealing with their personal indebtedness.
I thank the Minister of State for his comprehensive reply. The pilot framework will be initiated in June and I wish this process well. It forms part of the Government's holistic approach to dealing with personal indebtedness and mortgage arrears, in particular, which have bedevilled the country for too long. The Government is trying to take a coherent, co-ordinated and comprehensive approach to addressing the problems experienced by too many people to ensure they can again become economic actors. It is also welcome that the initiative is being tested in advance of the full roll-out of the personal insolvency service. The approach needs to be holistic and it needs to take in as many institutions operating in the economy as possible and practicable. It has been my experience, and I am sure that of most Members who are familiar with the work of credit unions, that they have actively engaged on a bilateral basis with individuals and families in distress. I am hopeful that a number of concerns expressed on a formal basis by the ILCU can be addressed by the Central Bank and the Department of Finance, if necessary, because it is important that we recognise their fundamental role in our economy, that they are important economic actors in our communities and that people have a deep attachment to the credit union movement.
It has often been described as the people's bank. It is an institution which during the years has been available, from a lending and savings point of view, to many thousands of people who have not had access to the main high street banks to the extent they might have. I know the Minister of State is very conscious of the issues I have raised and hope some of the concerns of the Irish League of Credit Unions can be addressed through this process and that it may be in a position to formally engage in this process shortly, if these concerns can be addressed.
I very much welcome the Deputy's remarks. We are all in a new space since the passage of the personal insolvency legislation and the setting of very clear targets by the Government in March in terms of making progress. Both of us would agree that we need to make progress and this is one arm of the progress agenda which is being rolled out by the Central Bank. As the Deputy rightly pointed out, this is a pilot scheme which I hope will involve 750 cases. In any kind of pilot scheme we are learning and road-testing something, I hope as part of a wider scheme which needs to be rolled out for people in mortgage distress. This case is unique in that it is dealing with people with secured and unsecured debt. That is the kind of catch-all holistic approach, to which the Deputy referred, that we want to see.
On behalf of the Minister for Finance, I reiterate what the Deputy said. We want to see the Irish League of Credit Unions involved and that is the position of the Central Bank also. I hope some of the league's misgivings about the scheme thus far can be removed by way of discussions and participation. We need to learn from it as to how the scheme can be applied in a more exacting way to its requirements and customers who are crucial to a resolution of this issue. It might be useful if the contents of this debate and the very positive initiative the Deputy took in raising this issue were transmitted to the Central Bank and I will ensure that happens. It will, therefore, be aware of the Deputy's remarks and mine and those of the Department of Finance and of the need for constructive engagement with the Irish League of Credit Unions in order that there will be a positive outcome from this pilot scheme and that we can roll out a more far-reaching scheme into the future.
Education Grants
I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for selecting this issue which I have been attempting to raise for the past couple of weeks. I have also been looking for clarification from SUSI. It would be opportune for these issues to be clarified now and guarantees to be given that parents and students will not face the frustration and trauma they experienced last year. It was understandable there would be some teething problems, but, as time passed, what happened was much worse than that.
The reason I would like clarity and certainty is that in the next few weeks students will sit the leaving certificate examination. Once the examinations are over, the focus will switch to results, college places and, in particular, grant applications and whether they will be successful. We cannot have a repeat of the situation last year where the same documents were requested a number of times, even though on many occasions they were sent by registered post and signed for by SUSI. The dysfunctional nature of the process was illustrated to me by the following case. Two children in one family applied for a grant. The same documents, the same income limits, etc. applied, but one member of the family was given a grant, while the other was refused.
I understand new procedures are being put in place, including bringing forward the date when applications can be made and links with the Department of Social Protection, the Department of Education and Skills and Revenue to cut down on the amount of documentation required. I also note there is to be a revised document management process and that a tracking system, for which I called last year, is to be put in place under which a student can check his or her application online, as one would with a passport. I would very much welcome it if these procedures were put in place. The Minister of State, Deputy Fergus O'Dowd, can clarify this and provide details of a clear plan for SUSI to inform all stakeholders, including parents, students, public representatives and the media.
Last year SUSI outsourced some of functions and this led to further confusion and loss of documentation. Scanned documents were not acceptable last year. I welcome attempts to correct the situation, but students and parents need to be sure SUSI will work.
I thank the Deputy for raising this important matter. Up to 2011, students applied to their local authority or VEC for their grants. Some 66 grant awarding authorities were involved, all using a variety of application, assessment and payment processes. SUSI replaces all of these with a centralised and online system of application. While there were problems in the first year of the new system, the policy decision was correct, that the establishment of a single grant awarding body would serve our students better in the long run.
City of Dublin VEC commissioned an external review of SUSI which was carried out by Accenture and published last Friday. I welcome this review and fully support its recommendations, implementation of which has commenced. Applications opened this week for the coming academic year and I am pleased to say extra resources have been sanctioned to ensure SUSI will have additional staff to meet the needs of new applicants. I am informed by SUSI that, in preparation for the 2013-14 academic year, the online application and assessment processes are being further developed to enhance their effectiveness and efficiency and to respond to the experiences from year one.
For applicants going to or returning to college for the 2013-14 academic year, a number of new initiatives will make their application to SUSI more efficient this year. The initiatives include direct information sharing between SUSI and Government bodies and agencies, including the Revenue Commissioners, the Department of Social Protection, the General Register Office and the Central Applications Office. These links will reduce significantly the number of documents required.
In addition to these developments, core staff are now on site. These trained and experienced staff are cross-functional and a number of them are now fully proficient in specialist areas such as analysis of income from self-employment, nationality issues and appeals. There is a revised document management process in place and also a new tracking system is being developed which will allow students to follow the progress of their applications online. This will reduce the requirement for students to contact the SUSI helpdesk for updates on the status of their applications.
I welcome the Minister of State's clarification of some of the issues I raised, in particular the tracking system and the direct link with Revenue and the Department of Social Protection. In terms of the link with Revenue and the Department of Social Protection, will he clarify whether there is an issue of data protection and whether it will cause problems? Referring back to the problems of last year, have all the grants for the last academic year been paid as of now, even though it is 21 May? My information up to a couple of weeks ago was that there were still some outstanding.
How many appeals were in the system this year? My information is that some oral appeals took place. How many of those appeals were successful? I refer to both the written appeals and the oral appeals. It is hugely important that grants do not have to be paid out in March and April of next year. I would like the Minister of State to answer my questions regarding the last academic year.
We all accept that there were problems. They are now being addressed. Substantial progress has been made in dealing with outstanding applications. There were problems with the new grant-awarding system in its first year. SUSI has made substantial progress. Some 99.5% of applications are now complete. The final 447 cases, most of which are awaiting final elements of documentation from students, are expected to be closed out in the coming weeks. I will ensure the other questions raised by the Deputy are brought to the attention of the Minister's office for direct reply.
I thank the Minister of State.
Homeless Persons Supports
The Minister of State, Deputy O'Dowd, will be familiar with the context in which I am raising this issue. It is regrettable that the small cohort of young people who live in emergency accommodation, having found themselves homeless, appears to be getting bigger. Like all other young people, they have been affected by the 2009 supplementary budget cut and other cuts since then. I refer specifically to the reduction in the rate of jobseeker's allowance to €100 for those under the age of 21 and to €144 for those between the ages of 22 and 25. It was presented by the Government at the time as a way of incentivising young people to get involved in training. It was suggested that it would lead to a reduction in the costs of the Department. The actual effect of this measure was to increase the costs of the Department. It has served to trap some young people in emergency accommodation, which definitely adds to the long-term cost to the State.
Some young people who are in care under section 5 cannot access training courses or, in some cases, housing because they have not been in care for long enough. I refer to young people whose family relationships have broken down. Their families are responsible for them until they reach adulthood. When they turn 18 and are turfed out, they can be caught in a situation of homeless and all that entails for them. Some of them end up in emergency accommodation because they are unable to afford private accommodation. Last week, a joint committee debated the effect this is having in Dublin and other urban areas. The cap on rent allowance imposed by this Government does not take account of the increases in rents on the private market in Dublin and some other places. The cap was unrealistic because there have been no rent decreases. It has forced people into homelessness. It has forced young people to remain in emergency accommodation. Young people are facing prolonged homelessness because of this situation. This can lead to chronic homelessness.
A growing number of young people are caught in a poverty trap as a result of the social welfare cuts I have mentioned. The Minister of the day said the cuts in question would alleviate these problems. I raised an aspect of this issue on Topical Issues the week before last. Dublin City Council and the Cara group, which runs a foyer scheme in my area, are trying to change the prevailing ethos of the centre in question so that it is no longer specifically aimed at the cohort I am talking about - young people between the ages of 18 and 25 who have nowhere else to go. They want it to be a general homeless centre. I will not go over that aspect of the matter again. Focus Ireland has raised a number of key points in relation to this cohort. I ask the Minister of State to set out the Government's response to the amended proposals made by Focus Ireland after its initial ideas were rejected. I hope they will be taken on board in order to address some of our concerns about the factors that are causing young people to be caught in a poverty trap and become homeless.
I thank Deputy Ó Snodaigh for bringing this matter before the House. I am responding to him on behalf of the Minister, Deputy Burton. The €100 rate of jobseeker's allowance was introduced for claimants under the age of 20 in April 2009. This rate was applied to claimants up to the age of 21 from December 2009. A rate of €144 applies to claimants between the ages of 22 and 24. The measures that encourage young jobseekers to improve their skills and remain active in the labour market in order to avoid the risk of becoming long-term unemployed will help them to progress into sustainable employment on a long-term basis. A higher rate of €160 applies if a person who is in receipt of a rate of jobseeker's allowance as described above is participating in a course of education or training.
I understand the Deputy has been contacted with regard to these measures by Focus Ireland. The Minister for Social Protection met representatives of Focus Ireland on 15 May last to discuss a number of issues relating to homelessness, including the situation of young people who receive the reduced rates of jobseeker's or supplementary welfare allowance. Officials are in ongoing contact with the organisation with regard to its concerns. While the primary issue in this regard relates to housing rather than income support, the Department of Social Protection has an important role in the delivery of solutions to homelessness. Generally, this role relates to income maintenance where homeless people have entitlements to the full range of social welfare schemes subject to the normal qualifying conditions. The Department also engages in interagency responses to homelessness. In this context, it will continue to engage with Focus Ireland and other groups on issues relating to reduced rate payments. I am informed by the Minister, Deputy Fitzgerald, that €17 million was spent on the after-care of young people last year.
I could have written the Minister of State's reply myself. We have heard some of it before. It does not take full cognisance of the fact that the changes in the rate are making it difficult for these young people to access alternative accommodation. Very few one-bedroom flats or apartments are available. Bedsits are no longer an option because they have been ruled out. These people are being squeezed at every level. They do not have the ability to access stable long-term accommodation. Fewer facilities are available to them. They cannot access training courses because they do not have long-term addresses.
During the debate that took place when these changes were being made, I asked why we should discriminate against young adults, which is what we are doing by applying a different rate to them. We are not taking account of the fact that a young adult of 18 has the same needs as an adult of 35. Some young people, particularly those who are homeless, have more needs than adults. Greater support is required to address their needs and ensure accommodation is available to them on a stable basis. That will allow them to access the other supports that the Minister has put in place. I hope those supports will be developed to assist homeless people in general. A specific homelessness strategy, along the lines of the suggestions made by Focus Ireland and others, is needed. One of the suggestions that was rejected in the past was the idea that homelessness should be recognised as a qualification for the full rate of social welfare.
Therefore, if people are homeless, and there are many ways of proving that it is not open to fraud, they would be able get the full rate to take account of their additional needs.
The additional points Focus Ireland was hoping to raise when it met the Minister have not been raised because this issue was not on the agenda. I urge the Minister to meet Focus Ireland again to discuss the need for the regular social care supports for this cohort of people and the need for six-monthly case reviews. There is also the question of the commitment by the young people that they will engage but also that the key worker who is assigned to them will fully engage and ensure that all of these issues would be addressed-----
The Deputy should conclude.
-----including the need for more facilities such as the Cara foyer or the foyer in Cork, which is run by the city council, not by an organisation which looks like it is getting out of the delivery of foyers.
I assure Deputy Ó Snodaigh the Minister will be given a copy of his comments for direct reply. The kernel is that the Minister has met with Focus Ireland and the Department continues to engage with it on the issues the Deputy has raised today.
Early Child Care Education
I thank the Minister for attending. The topic of child care costs and, more specifically, the provision of the second preschool year has garnered a lot of coverage in recent weeks. The Minister, Deputy Quinn, suggested a second preschool year could be provided through a reduction in the funding of child benefit, a view which seems to be supported by the Ministers, Deputies Fitzgerald and Burton, but not supported by the Tánaiste, who seemed to shut down the whole debate.
The provision of affordable child care is an extremely important issue which warrants further consideration, although a second preschool year alone will not deal with the high costs of child care. I believe debating the second preschool year is premature until weaknesses within the existing preschool year are addressed. I was disappointed that a recent evaluation report compiled by an inspector from the Department of Education and Skills and a member of the HSE, in regard to a small sample of State-supported early child care settings, was leaked to the media instead of being properly published and debated in the House. The evaluation process concentrated on five key areas, which I will not outline here as the Minister knows them well. I acknowledge there were positive results in some areas, including in regard to quality of personal care and the extent to which relationships with children and the environment supported children's development. However, there were areas of concern, in particular that the extent to which the programme of activities and its implementation supports children's development was effective in less than half of the settings evaluated, demonstrating significant weaknesses or more weaknesses than strengths. Inspectors expressed concern that there was a lack of planning in some settings for a curriculum which is based on children's abilities, interests and needs.
That is worrying considering the early years are the most formative in a child's development. Much of the policy development for early childhood care and education has been completed, namely, Síolta, the national quality framework for early childhood education, Aistear, the early childhood curriculum framework and a workforce development plan. However, there is a complete failure to progress any of these initiatives to an extent that will actually result in change. Some 134 out of approximately 4,000 services are currently implementing the Síolta quality assurance programme, and with regard to Aistear, which was commissioned by the Department of Education and Skills, to date, neither the NCCA nor the Department of Education and Skills or the early years policy unit has taken responsibility for the implementation of the framework. The workforce development plan was expected to focus on developing the workforce through commitments and resources to upskill staff but, instead, focused on standardising qualification and training levels. National and international research established that the skills and qualifications of adults working with young children are a critical factor in determining the quality of children's early childhood care and education experience.
None of these failures is attributable to the early childhood services; rather, it is the Government's failure to provide the necessary resources and supports and to ensure the policies it champions are implemented. That said, I acknowledge the evaluation process sample was extremely small. Will this evaluation process be expanded given we now know there are areas of significant weakness? Will the Minister ensure the model of evaluation and inspection is based on best outcomes for the children rather than being compliance based? We would like to see a second preschool year introduced but it is critical that we look at the weaknesses that exist in the current preschool year before we seek to introduce a second.
I believe the two are inextricably connected. I welcome the increased focus on the early years and I want to see more discussion about it, not less, given we need to focus far more on early intervention. That is the first point. Second, there is no question of the shutting down of the debate by the Tánaiste or anybody else. The Tánaiste has said he welcomes the increased focus on this area and that we need to examine the range of issues, some of which Deputy Troy has mentioned. Obviously, funding is challenging at present. While we must certainly look at weaknesses, I suggest to the Deputy that we need to look also at the strengths of the preschool year. What we need to do is examine the various building blocks that will lead to the successful establishment of a second year, having examined in good detail and assessed on an ongoing basis the first year. These are the general points I would make.
The free preschool year in early childhood care and education was introduced in January 2010. The objective is to provide every child, in the year before commencing primary school, with a well-developed programme of activities to support and promote all areas of their development. The ECCE programme was the first to implement Síolta and Aistear in order to ensure service providers work towards achieving the highest standards of curriculum planning and age-appropriate learning. I would make the point that we need to examine what is happening in the zero to six year old age group in terms of their experiences, whether in preschool or in the early years of primary school, and there needs to be more examination of the quality of the education children are getting in those years. As the Deputy knows, I have maintained the universality of the scheme and secured an extra €10 million to ensure we could deal with the increased demand for the programme.
I want to put some facts on the record because some of the recent reporting does not quite give the full picture. In 2011, some 2,789 child care providers were subject to inspections by the HSE, an inspection rate of over 61% in a single year. This compares very favourably with the UK, for example, where Ofsted operates a policy of inspecting child care providers on a three to four year cycle. However, I am very conscious of the continuing imperative to deliver improvements in quality in early years. Taking up the Deputy's well-made point, I have prioritised the need to introduce a more comprehensive and broader-based inspection regime than the one established by the previous Government, which was based more on compliance. We need to move away from that narrow focus on compliance to a greater focus on children's outcomes, including in regard to their educational development and child well-being.
As I said, the early years programme was set up with a compliance-focused inspectorate regime and we need to move to a more broadly-based regime focusing more on many of the quality and outcome issues. This links into the literacy and numeracy strategy which the Minister, Deputy Quinn, has initiated, and it obviously should be a part of that. In support of this, we last year initiated a joint pilot inspection of early years services. I emphasise that this was a joint inspection, carried out by the Health Service Executive and the Department of Education and Skills. We brought the two inspectorate regimes together in order to have a more effective examination of the services and bring the experience of both sets of inspectors to bear on the inspection.
It covered a very small number of services - 15. It is important to note the results of the inspections indicated that while services varied, in general, the care and well-being was found to be good, most of the services provided a very high standard of personal care and support for relationships around children and the support provided by the physical and material environment the children had was strong in the majority of services. Deficiencies were identified. It is extremely important that we now have that kind of inspection for the first time, even on a small scale, so that we can look at these quality issues. In the same way that HIQA is examining what is happening in departments of social work and front-line services, until we know precisely what is happening, we cannot make the changes that are necessary. It is the same in this area.
The inspectors advised that observation tools and assessment strategies be used in order to ensure that the needs of children are appropriately addressed. They highlight the need for quality practice within early childhood settings and the need to support the development of professional expertise among staff, including with respect to planning and implementing a clearly structured, well-referenced programme of activities, as outlined in the Síolta and Aistear frameworks. There is a number of elements to that which my Department is examining. Can I put on record that the Pobal annual survey of child care providers for 2011 found that in respect of staff qualifications, one third of staff had a qualification at degree level and 76% of staff had a qualification equal to or higher than FETAC level 5?
Can I come back to the Minister on that because she is on the seventh minute?
I pay tribute to the staff who have engaged in further education and training in the sector. This is an area to which we need to give further support.
I hope the Acting Chairman is as lenient. I will not delay matters. We all acknowledge that the participation rate in the free preschool year is very good at almost 100%. However, participation alone is not a measure of success. I am glad the Minister concurs with my point that we need a broader evaluation focused more on the children's outcomes rather than on compliance with regulations. Will the Minister ensure that we expand the evaluation process across a wider range of our early childhood settings as opposed to only 15 out of over 3,000? I accept that it is not reflective of the entire image but it does highlight areas of concern. I acknowledged the areas of positives it highlighted but we need to focus on the area of concerns, which relate to the quality of the provision of our education. That is why I am asking the Minister when she will ensure that the policy frameworks of Síolta, Aistear and the workforce development plan will be rolled out continuously over the early childhood providers because that is what we need to see. She also made reference to the issue of national literacy and numeracy. I believe the Minister for Education and Skills has allowed €6.5 million in 2013 in respect of this area. What percentage of this budget will be ring fenced for children in the preschool year?
The reason we had this pilot inspection carried out was to inform the development of an ongoing quality regime within early childhood settings. We are absolutely committed to that. It is extremely important. Developing that is an important part of the process of moving towards a second year as well. We should still have the vision for a second year but we need continually to build in quality for children's experiences, whether it is in early years setting or the early years of primary school. There is a number of actions being actively examined and worked on by both Departments. One is enhancing the supports that are available to individual settings to develop the Aistear and Síolta services. Second, we must adapt the existing preschool inspection system to provide an early education inspection and assessment system. Both Departments are actively working on that. It will be similar to what is in place for primary schools. Third, we will review the professional training system for early education practitioners to make sure that we deliver the kind of accessible and affordable training and the appropriate quality for the staff in these services. That can be done by working with the VECs and other providers funded by the Department of Education and Skills. That is the programme of action that is needed in this area. We will be rolling out various implementation actions in respect of each of those in the coming months and years.