Marian Harkin on childcare limbo, costs and reopening

First of all, Minister, unlike many deputies, I have not had the privilege to work with you in this House, but I have, as it were, from a distance, observed your progressive work in the area of childcare and, as you said earlier, the work of your officials. So, can I wish you well in the next phase? Now, three brief questions. I suppose COVID-19 has upturned everything. And from my conversations with providers and workers in the sector, a lot of them feel right now as if they're in a kind of limbo. And let me explain. The email that arrived on Monday asking staff to volunteer to work in the homes of people who need childcare. There are issues here around providing a proper service, about PPE, about, you know, guidelines as to how they specifically operate. We've heard of the low wages. Are they expected to travel to these houses? Who will bear the costs, et cetera? So there's a lot of issues there. I know you're trying to find a solution at a difficult time, but they have to deal with it on a day-to-day basis. In terms of reopening of the sector, many issues. Just, for example, the sanitising of the centres. That's an extra cost. Are there any proposals to help the sector in that area? And finally, the model of childcare. You gave your own view. You've spoken of your support for a fully funded childcare sector. And I think the Big Start programme there, supported by CIP2, is something we can look at. But very briefly, the community childcare providers, many of them run by volunteers. They only survive because of voluntary effort and other community groups. Given where we are now, many of them may be unsustainable in the future. So I'd just like your views on that sector in particular, Minister. Thank you. Thank you, Deputy, and thank you for your kind comments. And I could just respond or return the acknowledgement of your own extraordinary work over the years, which I have observed from a distance. Your first point in terms of getting an email in relation to, you know, that we want to call on you in terms of childcare for healthcare. I understand what you're saying in terms of maybe the response and that feeling of being in limbo. I understand that. We felt that we needed to at least begin the process so that, you know, we can be ready when we were called on to do that. We are working with, you know, our representative bodies of the childcare services to put together suggestions and guidance in relation to how to move forward in that regard. And we are doing it as fast as we can. So I'm saying we are responding at the same time. I understand that it is not at the speed that we would like it to be, nor do the workers or our professionals. So I understand that. But I think that we will have that relatively shortly. And I think it will be a good package. In terms of the reopening and the proposals, we've talked, I have talked a bit about that here already. And that we are, we have begun the planning. We are engaged with, again, the representative bodies and indeed individual service providers sending us in ideas on guidelines for what are the things that we need to lay out that would enable the best possible safety for the children, for the workers, et cetera, and the ways in which we move forward in terms of that phased reopening. So that process has begun and we are working with the people who do it and know it best, what is required. And we hope to have really within the next, within about two week period to meet again with the early years, members of the early years forum, which I did just yesterday or the day before, beginning to talk about this process. The model in terms of where we, as we move forward, it is, it is true to say too, though, that a number, a number of months ago, I did establish an expert independent group that is looking at a new model of public funding. It, it, and, and they are continuing to do their work. And I hope that that will be a resource for the new government in terms of the community and the not-for-profit. But I think that we have particularly always had our eye on that particular group of services and, and that they do have particular, extraordinary gifts and resilience. And we have, I think, found ways to continue to support. But at the same time, I, I, I, yes, you know, they, they do need special, they have, they come from the context of special circumstances. And what I spoke about earlier is I think that in the phased reopening, certainly what we're talking about in the department is that those children and, uh, who have whatever their circumstances or special needs or socioeconomic circumstances that have, have lost the most during this period are, you know, that we are going to provide services there, uh, initially for them as we come back. Thank you.