Safeguards should be introduced to help prevent a Louise Woodward-type case happening in the Republic, an Oireachtas committee meeting on childcare was told yesterday.
The State should learn from childcare safety problems in other countries, Mr Jim O'Keeffe of Fine Gael told the Joint Committee on Family, Community and Social Affairs.
"The Louise Woodward case wasn't totally isolated in the US and we should be trying to minimise possibilities of such a case happening here," he said.
Ms Woodward, a British au pair, was found guilty of manslaughter after Matthew Eappen died in her care in the US.
Mr O'Keeffe asked Government officials whether any precautions were in place to avoid a similar case happening in the Republic.
Ms Sylda Langford, assistant secretary at the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, said it was "almost impossible to guarantee total safety in relation to children," even where there was round-the-clock care.
Ms Langford, whose background is in social work, said existing regulations setting minimum safety standards for people minding more than three children did not apply to minders caring for a single child.
The recent report of the Partnership 2000 Expert Working Group on Childcare recommended these checks should also apply to people minding a single child.
Ms Langford said the best way to help improve safety of children in the care of child-minders would be to establish a training and formal support network for the carers.
This would mean that if a child was getting on its minder's nerves, she could "pick up the phone" and get some support, she said.
Child-minders with working husbands had little incentive to leave the black market because of tax disadvantages, she added.
"If there was a way for them to come into the formal economy and avail of training and formal support that would be the best way to help safety."
Senator Margaret Cox from Fianna Fail said the State lacked a "political vision" on childcare reforms. Ms Roisin Shortall (Labour) was critical of the Government's provision for the pre-school sector.
The committee also heard submissions from officials from the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs on the Expert Working Group Report on Childcare.