How many calls were made by the Minister, Deputy Creed's, officials working in the factories he mentioned where the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has officials? Given that almost 900 cases of Covid-19 have been detected in meat factories, how many calls were made and emails sent from the Minister's staff on the ground to the Department? Surely there is some paper trail that shows the number of phone calls of concern. What planning have the Minister and his officials co-ordinated to mitigate a secon…

I am sharing time. With the permission of the Minister, I will engage in rapid fire questions and answers. There are three major issues in the childcare sector which I wish to raise, the first issue being childcare for healthcare workers. I listened to the Minister's statement. What amazes me is that her first mention of the Department's provision for emergency childcare for essential healthcare staff is, "document first appeared in NPHET's minutes on 16 March." That is nine weeks ago. The Minister today mentioned …

I thank the Minister. Will the Minister explain to me why then for the past two weeks when I have sought the detailed minutes of all the meetings that have happened between her Department and NPHET they have not been provided?

The Department of Children and Youth Affairs.

I have asked for them on three occasions and I have had no response.

I thank the Minister. When it was becoming apparent that the outreach model was not going to work did the Minister examine the possibility of extending the partial state indemnity to childcare providers for Covid-19 related claims and did she consult with other insurance companies?

The Minister has responded in regard to consulting with the providers to assess the buy-in but only six signed up to the scheme. Can I hear the Minister's thoughts on only six of over 4,500 providers in the country signing up to the scheme?

I will now move to the impact of Covid-19 on childcare more generally. Under the Government's plan to reopen Ireland, more workers will return to their places of work and this will create enormous pressures on the childcare sector. The roadmap provides for phases 3 and 4. On the last day the Minister was in the Dáil, I asked her what is an essential worker. Will she tell me today what is an essential worker, please?

Absolutely, because that is what it says in the roadmap.

Yes, so what is it?

Yes.

I thank the Minister.

All right.

The point is that we have had the Department flip-flopping over this. We have been on a roadmap-----

The Department of Children and Youth Affairs.

With the height of respect to the Minister, what we are trying to establish today is to give confidence in the sector to the people who are returning to work. The Taoiseach has launched a roadmap which includes a heading for childcare and education. Under education, there is nothing. Under childcare, there are three phases, with phase 1 being to provide support, confidence and a nine-week wait for essential front-line workers. Phase 3 is the reintegration of the outreach model into the in-service provision for esse…

In relation to phase 4, there is going to be a huge capacity issue. What is the Department of Children and Youth Affairs doing to address that? I go back to the point that if we are telling workers that they can only use the service on one out of five days, how is the Department addressing that capacity issue and what measures is it putting in place? Are the city and county childcare committees currently heat-mapping right across the country to understand, first, who the essential workers are and, second, how many …

Finally-----

This is my last point, and if the Minister could address it in her reply to another speaker, that would be great. I go back again to the definition of essential workers, assuming all the phases open up. If the latter proves to be the case, what powers does she plan to exercise regarding who decides who is an essential worker's child and who gets service?

I thank the Minister for her address earlier on. With the seating arrangements, we are continuously rotating to get space in here. With the usual funding streams such as the early childhood care and education scheme, ECCE, suspended, the majority of crèches have signed up to the wage subsidy scheme, which has been welcomed by most staff, providers and parents. From speaking to several providers and representative groups yesterday, there are numerous issues with how the scheme operates, such as self-employed crèche …