923. Deputy Sean Sherlock asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the number of Early Learning Care and School-Age Childcare services inspected in 2023 and 2024, broken down by community or private service, service size, full day care, part time, sessional, school age childcare and county, in tabular form. [44462/24]

Quality assurance of early learning and care (ELC) settings currently includes inspections carried out by both the Tusla Early Years Inspectorate and the Department of Education Inspectorate, while inspection of school-age childcare (SAC) settings is undertaken by the Tusla Early Years Inspectorate.

The Tusla Early Years Inspectorate is the independent statutory regulator for the early learning and childcare sector. Tusla are committed to ensuring that children attending ELC and SAC services are safe, that they receive appropriate care and have a positive experience where they can develop and learn in a quality service.

The Department of Education Inspectorate conducts education-focused inspections of ELC services that receive funding from my Department. These inspections evaluate the quality of the nature, range and appropriateness of the early educational experiences for children participating in ELC services. As my colleague the Minister for Education is responsible for the education inspections, I kindly suggest that you direct your question on the number of inspections undertaken by the Department of Education Inspectorate to my colleague.

Pobal, more specifically Pobal Compliance, Audit and Risk (CAR), are responsible for carrying out compliance inspections on providers in the ELC and SAC sector. These inspections are separate to the quality assurance inspections and are there to ensure that beneficiary scheme monies are being used appropriately and that risks to Exchequer funding are detected and minimised.

Further information is set out at the following link:

Inspections