The commitment to improve the quality of early childhood care and education has been a key priority for me since becoming Minister for Children and Youth Affairs. To assure higher standards in pre-school services, my Department is progressing the Pre-School Quality Agenda and I have identified a number of areas that can significantly enhance the quality of the service provided including the implementation of the Siolta and Aistear frameworks.
The successful implementation of the frameworks on a nation-wide level will require all childcare practitioners to have a thorough understanding of quality early years provision. I secured funding in Budget 2014 to establish a new National Quality Support Service for pre-school services. The National Quality Support Service will include the introduction of a new intensive support service which will work directly with childcare services to improve the quality of pre-school care and education.
The key to the provision of successful supports to childcare services will be a coherent national approach to all quality support. I am currently considering how best to achieve that and will be consulting with key stakeholders over coming weeks. Within this overall approach, I hope that more intensive supports would begin to be provided in September 2014.