asked the Minister for Health the reasons for the continued delay in publishing the report of the Task Force on Child Care and in introducing a new Children's Bill.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Child Care.
9.
The report of the Task Force on Child Care Services has recently been presented to me and the Government have now approved of its publication. The necessary steps are being taken to have the report published as early as possible.
Work on preparing a new Children Bill is now being put in hands.
Have the heads of the Bill been circulated to the other Government Departments?
Not as yet. The report is not finally available. The draft of the report has just been made available. The Committee want to finalise some aspects of the draft and they are doing that. We are trying to accelerate the publication and in that sense we have taken some shortcuts towards publishing. This is now being dealt with.
Is it reasonable to assume that since the heads of the Bill have not been circulated we will not see any legislation this side of next summer?
I hope that in the session after Christmas we will see something. This is an area in which there is considerable division and contention, as the Deputy will see when the report of the task force is published. It is not quite as simple as it looks. Once the report is published we will proceed immediately to implement any aspects of it that we can.
How long has the task force report been with the Minister or his junior Minister? When does the Minister expect to be in a position to issue that report bearing in mind that it was anticipated that it would be issued in the third week in October?
The final report of the task force was presented on 22 September as a final draft. I do not think the Deputy will consider there was undue delay when he considers that since then it has been approved by the Government and gone on for publication.
It was to be issued in the third week in October at a press conference in Carlow.
There was no firm date set. It is a very large report.
I should like to ask a further supplementary about another aspect of this matter.
I am moving on to the next question. We will certainly not break any records today with questions.