Childcare Services
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-23
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Norma Foley (FF), Kerry

Gorgeous. For ease of reference, a full copy of the 2016 regulations is available to download from Tusla's website. The data provided by Tusla is in respect of inspections as opposed to services. This is because some services may have been inspected more than once. That is an important consideration. The figures I am about to provide relate to inspections, not services.
Over 3,500 inspections of early years services took place over the period. The level of non-compliance by regulation at the end of the inspection process, post submission of corrective action and preventive action response from the provider, was as follows. Out of the 3,500 inspections, there were five non-compliant inspections relating to Garda vetting, 60 relating to qualifications, ten relating to staffing levels and 14 relating to the health, welfare and development of the child. That refers to care needs, relationships or effective programme and environment.
On Garda vetting, immediate action notices were issued in relation to all five services, and the registered provider committed to removing them from having access to children until vetting is in place. The inspectorate records all non-adherence to Garda vetting and follows up with the relevant service.
In relation to qualifications, there are a number of factors relating to non-compliance. I will explain those in my next contribution.

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Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-06-23/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:06+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-23