Childcare Services
Dail Éireann — 2025-11-12
============================================================

Claire Kerrane (SF), Roscommon-Galway

I urge the Minister to ensure that the review takes place early next year. I was on the radio today. There was someone on with me who has been a childminder for 17 years. She is leaving. She has told the parents of the children that she will not be able to look after them at the end of the school year next June. She is one of many. I do not see any reason that a review of the regulations would be delayed. If we go through the regulations, one example of them being unworkable is the emergency cover. There has to be somebody who can provide emergency cover at all times. Unless the provider has a Johnny or a Mary who will sit at the window and look out and wait for the call, that is not possible. If the childminder needs to change that person or that person decides they are leaving, they have to give Tusla 60 days’ notice. Unless that emergency cover is in some kind of a contract with the childminder, how would they get 60 days’ notice from somebody? I know a childminder in Roscommon. They have four emergency contacts via the parents of children that they look after and now she needs to go and find another emergency contact who can be available at all times. This is not workable. I would like some further detail on when the review will take place.

---

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/2025-11-12/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:05+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-11-12