Dáil Éireann Debate, Friday - 6 September 2019
1702. Deputy Anne Rabbitte asked the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the number of services that are deemed non-compliant by service type, that is, sessional full day and county, in tabular form. [36373/19]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe independent statutory regulator of early years services, Tusla, does not reference an overall status of "non-compliant" in relation to an early years service. Rather, compliance is assessed in relation to each of the individual regulations within the Early Years Services Regulations, as a service may be found non-compliant in relation to one or more regulations but compliant in relation to others. Following a finding of non-compliance in relation to one or more regulations, an early years service is then given the opportunity to rectify the position and become compliant in relation to those regulations. As a result of the regulatory work undertaken by Tusla, levels of non-compliance across the sector are reducing.
On a periodic basis, Tusla collates data from inspections and publishes summary analyses of inspection findings. The latest such analysis is available in the Tusla Early Years Inspectorate Annual Report for 2017, which is published on the Tusla website. The annual report provides information relating to the levels of compliance in the sector in that year. In 2017, the year covered by that report, 12,857 regulations were assessed across 1,563 inspections, and of these regulations 3,217 (25%) were non-compliant. Not all regulations are assessed at each inspection. About one-third (32%) of inspection reports analysed in that year did not record any non-compliant regulations, and a further one-third (32%) recorded either one or two non-compliant regulations.
The 2018 annual report of the Early Years Inspectorate is due for publication in October 2019.
