Vol. 1053 No. 2
85. Deputy Brian Leddin asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the funding streams available under his Department to assist with migrant integration; how much has been allocated under these funding streams this year; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19219/24]
I am taking this on behalf of Deputy Leddin. We have faced a massive challenge, particularly since 2022 with the outbreak of war in Ukraine. The outbreak of war in mainland Europe is not something we have seen in decades. For the most part, we as a country and particularly communities, have risen to that challenge magnificently. Over 100,000 people have been given shelter on our shores over the last two years . My question is about some of the funding schemes that have been put in place under the Department to assist with that migrant integration and how much those funding schemes have been allocated this year.
My Department administers a number of funding streams addressing integration by way of annual and multi-annual grants. I have been working to maximise these funds to support excellent work and proposed work across communities in every corner of Ireland, to help migrants to settle in. Despite recent negative events, this remains the more dominant response of Irish communities to new arrivals.
The national integration fund has the goal of supporting communities across Ireland to play a greater role in promoting the integration of migrants. I announced the results of an open call under this fund earlier this month. A total of €2.9 million was awarded to 18 projects over a three-year period. Given the overall strength of applications for this fund and the increasing importance of supporting migrant integration I am currently pursuing additional funding to support an expansion of the fund’s reach.
Also earlier this month, I opened calls for applications for the communities integration fund. Annually, small grant funding of €1,000 to €5,000 is made available for local integration initiatives. Some €0.5 million has been made available for the 2024 version of the fund, which is currently open for applications until next Wednesday, 8 May.
In February I opened calls for a fund specifically to support the integration of international protection applicants. I prioritised the opening of this scheme this year and also tripled the available funding compared to last year. The international protection integration fund has a small and large grant strand and I will be announcing the grantees under this €1.5 million fund next month.
Europe is also supporting us in efforts to facilitate migrant integration. The asylum, migration and integration fund is a multi-annual EU co-funded programme. This day last week I announced 17 projects that have been approved total funding of €10 million for a four-year period.
Finally I want to mention another EU supported fund, the integration and employment of migrants funding stream is part of a multi-annual EU fund under the European Social Fund Plus. In Ireland, seven projects have been approved total funding of €2.7 million for a three-year period to support legally resident migrants who are experiencing barriers to participation and employment because of language difficulties, lack of training or social exclusion. Waterford area partnership in Deputy Ó Cathasaigh’s area is one of its beneficiaries.
I think the Minister of State is right in emphasising that even though what dominates our news cycle are the instances where integration has gone wrong or has failed to take hold, in communities across the country, there are small stories of community integration where it is going right. I would point to my home town of Tramore. We have had direct provision in Tramore for well over 20 years. I have taught those kids. You look at the pictures of the county final and you see the evidence of positive integration within our community.
The proliferation of funding streams is very welcome but when you talk to the various GAA clubs, community groups or whatever else, you find their heads are spinning because there are these different pots of money aimed in different ways. Many clubs are successful with this kind of funding application, because there will be one person who is very good at filling in a form, but not every community group or club has that one person. There is need for simplification of the process.
The Deputy makes a number of good points. With smaller funds, such as the community integration fund, we keep the administration level down as much as possible because we want local groups like that to be able to apply for it, so we do our best to keep it as simple as possible. However, with higher amounts of money, when you are talking about hundreds of thousands of euro, a higher level of due diligence is required.
I also want to take the opportunity to acknowledge that tomorrow is 1 May. It is 20 years since EU accession when a lot of new member states joined. I think Ireland in particular benefitted hugely from that. If people look back on the statistics for the years following that tranche of accession in 2004, they will see the number of people who came into the country is quite similar to the number coming in over the last couple of years too. The EU has been good to us. EU accession has been good to us. A very large migrant integration project has happened over the past 20 years, starting in 2004, which should give us all encouragement for the challenges we face now, albeit very different ones.
I have a short personal story. I happened to be in UHW visiting a family member over the weekend. I met a nurse there whose accent I could not place. I asked her where her accent was from and it was from Somalia. However, it was not really a Somalian accent, or it started as a Somalian accent but it had a good 20 years of Waterford knocked into it as well. Even had I known at the start of the conversation that she was Somalian, I think I would have struggled to place the accent. It was Somalia by way of Barrack Street, I think.
We see positive examples of integration in our communities all across the island. The Minister is moving in this direction through these funding streams but I would say that communities have done an enormous amount of heavy lifting. What we have faced over the last two years has been an unprecedented movement of people, both from Ukraine and other parts of the world. These funding streams are necessary to build the social and human capital across our communities to allow that integration to move forward in the positive way I have seen through my teaching career.
We are investing in infrastructure but in people as well. I want to acknowledge the Minister, Deputy O’Gorman’s contribution in this area too. We are developing, under his guidance, local authority integration teams. This bulks up the capacity of local authorities across the country to have a very particular focus on migrant integration. My understanding is that 75% of those positions have been filled and that is trending upwards too.
I must also mention the community recognition fund which is all about how many communities have been doing the heavy lifting the Deputy mentioned. We have a new round of that at the moment. It is important people are aware of it. There are opportunities for communities to further develop their infrastructure. We have made the current process a bit more sophisticated than the last one, in that we have rolling entry points to it. There will be a couple of opportunities this year for communities across the country to improve the infrastructure in their community that will help everyone.
86. Deputy Darren O'Rourke asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth for a breakdown of the staff numbers and grade in each of the CDNTs in County Meath in 2021, 2022, 2023 and to date in 2024, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19187/24]
I am interested in the strength of those teams and the vacancies there as it relates to the huge demand for services.
I thank the Deputy for giving me the opportunity to update the House on the four children’s disability network teams, CDNTs, in County Meath. Network 2, where the HSE is the lead agency, covers Kells, Oldcastle and north Meath, while network 6, also led by the HSE, covers Athboy, Dunboyne, Enfield, Summerhill and Trim. Enable Ireland is the lead agency for network 4, covering Ashbourne, Duleek, Dunshaughlin, Laytown, Bettystown and Ratoath, and network 5, covering Navan and Slane.
CHO 8, similar to other parts of the health service, is experiencing significant recruitment challenges. These challenges are not unique to this CHO and are affecting many teams throughout the country and across many clinical disciplines, which is having an impact on service delivery. Notwithstanding these challenges, staffing numbers across the four CDNTs now sits at 70.3 whole-time equivalents, up 9% year on year, and over 10% since 2021. Compared with Cavan, which we discussed earlier, it is a completely different story. While I acknowledge that vacancies exist across the CDNTs, it is also important to note that three of the four CDNTs have higher staffing levels than in 2023, with the fourth team maintaining its level year on year.
Over the past four years, 33.3 staff have been added in CDNT 2 and more than 73.9 staff have been added in CDNT 4. In CDNT 5, which is an Enable Ireland team, 91 staff have been added. In CDNT 6, a total of 50 staff have been added. Over those four teams in County Meath, 248 staff have been added. I can share the figures in tabular format with the Deputy after Question Time.
It is difficult capture all the details and I would appreciate getting the tables. I asked the same question a year ago. Similar to the picture across the State, there is a significant vacancy rate. Whatever about posts being allocated, 36% were vacant, which is more than one in three. CDNT2, which covers a large urban area, had 49% vacancy. I recognise that funding is provided for posts but the issue is with demand for services and the vacancy rate. I presume those teams do not have the full complement of staff. There is a huge demand and waiting lists for those services.
Every figure I read out relates to filled positions. They are 248 posts that were filled over the past four years. The staff in whole-time equivalents is at 70% in County Meath. CHO 8 covers many counties, but in the Deputy's county it covers those four teams. That is the up-to-date situation with filled positions as we speak. Let us be clear; there is still a vacancy rate of 30%. I am not saying that by any manner of means it is perfect. There is still a long way to go. There is a large population of families there. It is quite an urban-centric county. Many more staff are required to meet the needs of the children on the teams. However, that is the current staffing level.
I thank the Minister of State and I look forward to getting those figures. It is the exact same paragraph as I had from last year on the significant recruitment challenges. Will the Minister of State speak to the issue of recruitment and retention? She may be checking figures. While I do not want to put her on the spot, they are a long way off what I have here. If she has clarification on the figures, I would be happy to hear it. Regarding the recruitment and retention challenge in the sector, are we training enough staff? Are we getting to the bottom of the issues with recruiting and retaining staff?
Let me be very clear. The wording here is "Notwithstanding those challenges, staffing numbers across the four CDNTs now sits at 70.3 whole-time equivalents". It is not a percentage but whole-time equivalents.
Are we training enough staff? In the past 12 months, I have set up a workforce planning group that I chair. All the lead agencies are part of it, along with the Department of higher education and the leads within the HSE, so that we can have that around-the-table conversation. Are we training enough? Are we ensuring we have people in the different disciplines to meet the needs? It cannot always be OTs, physiotherapists and speech language therapists. We need dieticians, psychologists and assistant therapists. In the Deputy's county, the ETBs are fantastic at training the assistant therapists. If we are training assistant therapists, OTs and physiotherapists, we need to ensure they actually have work placement opportunities. The HSE is quite shy in providing those workplace opportunities within the teams. If they were able to avail of that, we would be able to bring on more staff quickly to support the children who need it.
87. Deputy Richard Bruton asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if he will outline the work carried out to date on the establishment of the childcare development agency; and if he will set out the milestones remaining to its full establishment. [19054/24]
We move on to Question No. 87 in the name of Deputy Bruton but being taken by Deputy Stanton.
I am here on behalf of Deputy Bruton, who sends his apologies. He wants to ask the Minister if he will outline the work carried out to date on the establishment of the childcare development agency and if he will set out the milestones remaining to its full establishment.
Significant progress has been made in advancing plans for a dedicated State agency for early learning and care. The programme for Government contained a commitment to advance that. It is envisaged this agency will undertake some functions currently carried out by Pobal early years, including the Better Start programme, the 30 city and county childcare committees, as well as operational functions currently carried out directly in my Department.
A programme oversight board has been established for the agency and is tasked with overseeing the analysis and design phase of the programme. This board will ensure proposals for the new agency are based on offering the best possible services to children and their families, educators and practitioners, and service providers while also providing value for money.
My Department is engaging with independent consultants who have been contracted to carry out a phased research, analysis and stakeholder engagement to inform the design of the agency. This work, which is expected to take 18 to 24 months, is focused on information gathering, analysis and an initial design phase to take place throughout 2024 and 2025. A second phase relates to a more in-depth design and costing exercise to take place from 2025 and is scheduled to take six to nine months. The work will culminate in a costed agency design, including the remit, organisational structure and service delivery model, which will be presented to Government for approval.
My Department is committed to ongoing consultation with all stakeholders throughout the design process. That consultation is very important. There are many players in this area doing really good work. The introduction of an agency would be a significant change in this landscape. That is why it is important we are talking to the stakeholders. A series of stakeholder consultation sessions have already been held with key stakeholders and valuable input has been received as part of a collaborative co-design process to develop a vision, mission and values for the agency. A report has been compiled from these consultations and has been circulated to the principal stakeholders. Further stakeholder consultations are scheduled for May and consultations will continue throughout the lifetime of this programme.
I thank the Minister for his response and I congratulate him on the work done to date. As noted by the Indecon operating model review in 2021, the sector is characterised by a complex landscape of stakeholders and functions which has led to fragmentation, duplication and inefficiencies. The proposal to establish a single agency is very welcome. Will the Minister be bringing legislation to the House and, if so, when? What will be the key functions of the agency? Has he given any consideration to establishing a broad-based interim board soon to advance the work of his public servant group?
I outlined a number of steps in the process. We are in the key second phase at the moment, involving an in-depth costing.
When I originally brought proposals to Cabinet, we had a notional set-up cost of approximately €14 million and a notional operating cost per year of about €50 million. We are talking significant money, obviously. The Deputy knows me. I believe any money invested in our early years is money well spent but it is State taxpayers' money so we have to make the value-for-money case for the creation of an agency. That is important. We have this programme board. It is overseeing the consultation and that research piece as regards bringing forward the best case for it. It is important that this second phase is undertaken. Once that second phase is undertaken across this year and early into next year, I will be in a better position to talk about when we will bring forward clear legislation in respect of advancing the agency.
Again, I congratulate the Minister on the work but it strikes me it is taking an awfully long time. It could be another two years, maybe longer, before we see this in place. I asked the Minister if he would establish an interim board in order that it would be up and running and ready to go, rather than establishing a board which would then have to spend more time getting to know the brief. Is there any way of advancing it or bringing it forward? Why does it take so long to actually get this up and running, seeing as it is such an important agency? The Indecon review was completed in 2021, which is quite a while ago, and yet now we are talking about another 18 or 24 months and maybe another six months onto that. It seems like a long time. Is there any way of speeding it up?
I thank the Deputy. I could speak at length about the various things we have done in the early years sector. When I became Minister, my priorities were cutting the cost of childcare for parents, ensuring childcare professionals are better paid and improving the sustainability of childcare providers. We have done a significant amount in all three of those areas, while recognising there are still challenges. However, making the improvements there took a lot of time. I will be honest with the Deputy, I asked my team in the Department in the early years to prioritise those three areas. When I talk to parents now, they say their challenge is capacity and finding spaces, so that is where I see the big challenge now. We have a team working on this. It is important and something we want to advance but there are very immediate challenges for parents, childcare providers and childcare professionals. I believe we picked the right priorities while at the same time advancing those longer-term reforms as well.
Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire. Anois, tógaimid ceist Uimh. 88, arís in ainm an Teachta Bruton ach á thógáil ag an Teachta Stanton.
88. Deputy Richard Bruton asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if he will provide an update on the unmet need for childcare places, the uptake of the new capital scheme which he has published and his future plans for the sector. [19053/24]
This question relates to what the Minister just said and asks him to provide an update on the unmet need for childcare places, the uptake of the new capital scheme which he has published and his future plans for that sector. It has to do with housing estates being built around the country but no childcare places being provided in those estates. In some instances, parents are not able to go to work because they cannot find anybody to mind their child. Ideally, these childcare places would be very local and people would be able to walk to them with their child. They also have to be of scale in order to work properly.
I thank the Deputy. Ensuring high-quality early learning and childcare is affordable and accessible is a policy priority. The range of data available to my Department indicates that supply of early learning and childcare is increasing but I also recognise there are parts of the country where there are real capacity challenges.
The latest early years sector profile survey showed that, between 2021-22 and 2022-23, the estimated number of enrolments in services rose by 8%, from 197,210 to 213,154. Core funding data also provides evidence of increased capacity between year 1 and year 2 of the scheme, with the capacity growth in excess of 3%. Data from the Tusla register shows that, last year, we had the largest increase in new services in recent years, a smaller number of closures and a net increase in the overall number of services, to 125. That was significant last year.
At the same time, demand is increasing, particularly for full-time places and for children under the age of three. This increase in demand is driven by the major progress on affordability of provision, with the introduction and extension of the national childcare scheme subsidies and the establishment of the fee freeze through core funding. The Building Blocks capacity grant I announced last year is one of a number of measures that will respond to this unmet demand, with funding under this grant split into two strands. Applications for the first strand, namely, the Building Blocks expansion grant scheme for the renovation or reconfiguration of existing facilities to deliver additional capacity, are now closed. Pobal is currently appraising applications and I hope to announce the list of successful applicants next month. I will announce details of the significantly larger Building Blocks expansion grant scheme next month. Under this scheme, grants will be available to early learning and childcare providers to physically extend their services to deliver additional capacity, particularly looking at children from the ages of one to three.
Regarding housing estates and new housing estates, officials from my Department and the Department of housing met last week and a working group is being established to progress co-ordination of planning matters related to early learning and childcare.
I thank the Minister for his response and congratulate him on the work that is going on there. If I am correct, the current schemes only support expansions, not startups. If somebody wants to start from scratch and build a childcare facility, is there any support for that? Has the Minister asked the local childcare committees to conduct an assessment of local need? If not, will he do so and publish the results to find out what the need is in each area where the childcare committees operate? What is the Minister's estimate of the future need for additional places as we go forward? Is it going up or going down? Are there areas in the country that are red on the Department's map where the need will be fairly strong and other areas where the need falls? What does a childcare provider do when told the facilities being used can no longer be used? I have an example of this myself in the case of a small school where a childcare provider was told it would be out in September as the facility was needed for the school's own students. What can that childcare provider do to provide places and a facility? How can the Minister provide assistance?
I raise very similar concerns to the issues raised by Deputy Stanton. In the case of the naíonra in Tramore, it applied for that previous loan. It needed significant capital investment to maintain what has been an outstanding service for the past 30 years. Similarly, we see the number of housing estates cropping up all across the city and in Tramore. We are already at capacity within the town or city. Where are those children going to go? There is a bigger question if the State does want to make this capital investment. The margin of return on these crèches or early learning facilities is not really sufficient to make it stack up if you are trying to pay back a mortgage. If the State is taking a significant capital stake, that points to the next question of where the State lies in terms of the actual provision of the services as well. Certainly, we need to see more attention on the capital side to make sure we are building capacity.
I spoke to the Minister last week regarding the Before 5 childcare facility in Churchfield. It had a preschool, after-school care, a crèche and adult education. It had everything and was in a DEIS area in the heart of Churchfield and Gurranabraher. It has closed down but €364,000 will get it open. That would get hundreds of kids into childcare in our community but we cannot get the money. The people of Churchfield and Gurranabraher deserve answers. The children deserve answers. I had a parent in with me during the week. She has a child with additional needs who cannot settle in the school she has to travel to out in Blarney. I do not know if the Minister knows Cork that well but the child had to go out from Churchfield out to Blarney and in the end, the child gave up. If we do not get the Before 5 centre open in September, where is that child going to go? That mother is at her wit's end because she also has two younger children. All she is looking for is help. Will the Minister give a commitment to give the capital funding? Like the other Deputies, we need extra capacity and childcare and we need the Before 5 centre open. I ask him to give that commitment here.
I thank the Deputies very much. I have a lot to address in one minute. Deputies Ó Cathasaigh and Gould raised the issue of the Before 5 centre and indeed the Tánaiste has raised it with me as well. As I explained to the Deputies, right now our capital funding schemes are for expansions. The situation with the Before 5 centre is where we have an existing service that needs capital to keep going what it has at the moment. We are looking to see if there is a way of repurposing some of our existing capital to a fund that would be a kind of sustainability capital fund. I am working on that at the moment. I will be honest with the Deputy that I cannot give any absolute guarantees for one service but I am aware that there are services, like the one the Deputy has just spoken to, that have a need.
As I said, the Tánaiste has raised this with me as well, so we are working to see if there is a solution. That is as much as I can say to Deputy Gould on that point.
A supply management unit is being developed for my Department. It is a bit like the forward-planning unit in the Department of Education. We talk to the CCCs all the time but it is not done on that properly structured basis, so the idea is a supply management unit, and then we can feed into county development plans. My Department will start making direct submissions to county development plans. The two streams of funding for which we have approval to date are about expansion of existing services, but I am aware that there is a gap there as regards brand-new services and the costs there. As we go forward, and particularly in the 2025-26 capital funding year, I will look to put in place mechanisms for capital funding to support brand-new services as well. The Department is looking at that, and that is the next step in our capital programme.
I thank the Minister for that. I emphasise the need for a fund for start-ups. Right now, as colleagues have said, there are problems around the country where there is no provision. Feeding into the county development plan is a great idea, but my worry is that the county development plan in County Cork was published just last year, so it will be another four years before we will see action there.
May I ask the Minister about co-operation with schools on provision? The populations of some of our primary schools are dropping now, and they have extra rooms, which might help. What level of co-operation is there with primary schools, and should the Department and the Department of Education plan together for the needs of children as to what seems to be a rigid demarcation which now exists?
The Cabinet committee on children, education and disability met two weeks ago. I presented on capacity, and this is one of the issues I flagged. There are guidelines for the use of school buildings, and we would certainly encourage as robust language as possible there. There are two elements here. There are after-school services and there are services that may run at the same time as school. A school may have been able to give a class for ECCE, for example, but may now have expanded, and that is a really difficult situation. I strongly believe we should use classrooms for after-school services. There is an absolute synergy there. Public buildings should be used for the service, whether it is community or private. It is a really good synergy.
Again, we will submit to the Department of Education to put strong language in there. Obviously, boards of management have ultimate decision-making. I have encountered reluctance in my own constituency but, particularly for after-school services, it is a no-brainer. Why have that classroom sitting vacant for three hours in the afternoon?
89. Deputy Marc Ó Cathasaigh asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth when he expects to announce further details of the proposed equal participation model; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19261/24]
I am smiling wryly at the Minister's previous answer. Teachers are very protective of their classrooms: "If they come into mine, they better not mess up the copies or anything else."
As regards the fourth strand of the together for better programme, we have ECCE, the access and inclusion model and the national childcare scheme. The first three I understand quite well, but we have a proposed equal participation model on which the Department is working. I am not terribly clear on what we are proposing here and I would like to know about the timeline of it.
In budget 2024, I secured €4.5 million to commence the initial roll-out of equal start from September of this year. That allocation is equivalent to €13.5 million in a full year, and I will be very pleased to be able to fully announce equal start in May of this year. Equal start is a funding model and set of universal and targeted measures to support access to, and participation in, early learning and childcare for children and their families who experience disadvantage. It will consist of a series of measures to support children and their families, educators and practitioners, and settings.
The commitment to develop a programme of additional supports in early learning and childcare to help address disadvantage was made as part of First 5 and in the programme for Government and was later examined in the Partnership for the Public Good publication. The expert group made a series of recommendations on the nature of the programme to be developed and how it would fit with the other primary funding schemes for early learning and care, such as the ECCE programme, the access and inclusion model, AIM, and the national childcare scheme. I always describe equal start as a DEIS-type model but focused specifically on the area of early needs. A little different from DEIS, however, it is not just a "Yes" or "No", you are equal start or you are not. It looks at the children as well as the setting so it can target a setting or a childcare service in an area of very high disadvantage and provide additional supports, but it can also be designed in such a way that children attending a setting in a non-disadvantaged area, but where a number of those children experience particular social disadvantage, can be supported as well. It has the kind of enhanced level of flexibility we have already seen with the AIM programme and it will target children from particular groups: children from the Traveller and Roma communities, children experiencing homelessness, children from international protection families, children sponsored through the national childcare scheme and children from areas which have a very high deprivation index score.
I believe passionately in this and that we should not confuse equality of outcome with the equality of opportunity we often get in a meritocracy, whereby you start from 50 m and I start from 100 m, we say the finish line is in the same place and we say, "Was it not great we all got to run in the same race?" That is not really how society works. Well, it is how society works but it is not how society should work. I believe we should move in this direction. I read all the language on the together for better website but I still do not know how that translates into what will happen daily. The Minister refers to a DEIS-type model. That is fine and well. He says it could be within a placement or it could be more targeted. I understand the idea of targeting areas of particular social disadvantage but I want to know what that means in terms of people coming into a service and delivering something. From everything I have read about this, I do not quite understand. I have an idea of what we are trying to achieve but I do not really understand in that nuts-and-bolts way what it is we will actually do.
There will be a range of universal and targeted supports, just like there are for AIM. There will be universal supports as regards better training for everybody in settings in terms of social inclusion and how to act on that within the particular setting. Better information will be provided to all parents so they understand what the supports available to them are. Not all parents know about the NCS, for example, or AIM. It is a matter of better informing parents as to what is there for them. There will be targeted supports as well. One of the first set of targeted supports, the one we will start introducing from September of this year, is financial support for additional staff in settings which are in areas of high disadvantage, allowing staff to spend more time with children who need that additional time. There will also be additional financial support for things such as nutrition and meals, again recognising that services working in areas of high disadvantage probably do not have the same level of fee support. We can step in and ensure the best level of nutrition.
Additional staff and additional training for existing staff make all sorts of sense to me. The Minister will know that better informing parents is difficult. He talks about targeting that group. Trying to get people to actually interact with the services will be difficult. Will the Minister explain to me a little more about, as I said, the basic nuts and bolts? If I understand this correctly, it is aimed at early learning care and at school-age children. Are we talking about a wraparound support? Are we talking about after-school services? Are we talking about preschool services and that half hour before school starts? Also, in a sense, there is the rationale behind that. If we are talking about that kind of wraparound, are we saying we have an understanding that those parents will be out at work, or is it not that? Is it that we are getting the State to step in more in terms of the life of the child? The Minister might tease out a couple of those questions for me.
Could I get a bit more detail? I think we all welcome any moves as regards AIMS, and I really like the idea of targeted supports, but the problem is that we are all aware of desperate sets of circumstances. We all know that we need to see full wraparound family supports and full interventions.
In an awful lot of cases we deal with issues where kids have been left in the most chaotic of circumstances and you can be dealing with huge issues where addiction meets intergenerational poverty meets any other issue you want to pick, all of them negative. The fact is we are then trying to get the council, the Garda, Tusla, HSE services and whatever else. None of them have the resources to deal with these issues. I remember and I have seen where we had very close and early family supports and were able to save a lot of families and kids. However, if we are not going to make those sorts of interventions we will be dealing with these chaotic scenarios afterwards and we will, unfortunately, need some nuclear options at a later stage.
One statistic that always strikes me is that Traveller children are 10% less likely to take up the free two-year ECCE scheme than children from the settled community. Those kids on day one of junior infants are immediately at an educational disadvantage and they are trying to catch up from day one. We are targeting those early years, but that also includes school-age childcare. It is to recognise that the education element here is so important. There are children who are slipping through the cracks and not getting the benefit of early learning and care. One of the funding streams in the first year will be to support a Traveller officer and a Roma officer in better start, which is the unit in my Department that oversees the implementation of early learning in care. This might not be in year one but we will also be looking at the development of an equivalent to a home school community liaison officer in early years, so there is someone in the area going out and getting kids into early years as opposed to getting them into junior infants. We are starting this in year one. We are not going to do all of equal start in year one, but there is a positive series of measures over the next three years.
90. Deputy Cathal Crowe asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the measures he has taken since the Government came to office to ensure family leave entitlements have been expanded, to ensure new parents have been supported and to build new entitlements to work-life balance; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19136/24]
114. Deputy Brian Leddin asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if there is a plan to expand to all employees the entitlements to flexible working and remote working contained in the Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2023; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19218/24]
I am also asking this question on behalf of Deputy Leddin. There has been huge progress in the amount of family leave that is available and things like work-life balance, in particular working from home. I think of the difference between when I had my first young fella versus my third. I had three days leave for the first. By the time it rolled around to the third fella, it was two weeks' leave. That made a difference to me for sure but it made an enormous difference to my partner. For the full two weeks and whatever few days I had accrued, I could pitch in and help out in terms of all of the other bits and pieces that needed to be done around the house. There is huge progress and I ask the Minister to outline it.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 90 and 114 together.
There have been significant developments in the entitlements to different forms of family leave for working families in recent years. The Government committed in the programme for Government 2020 to supporting parents, including by extending paid leave to allow them to spend more time with their children during their earliest years. Parents' leave and benefit have been extended significantly by this Government. It currently provides seven weeks' paid leave for each parent, to be taken within a child's first two years. This entitlement will be extended to nine weeks later in the summer. Whereas it might have been two weeks for the Deputy in terms of parental leave, there is now that two weeks plus the nine weeks of parents' leave. There has been a dramatic expansion during the lifetime of this Government.
This Government is committed to supporting working parents, in particular those who are breastfeeding. The Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2023, enacted on 4 April 2023, includes amendments to the Maternity Protection Acts to provide for the extension of breastfeeding breaks for employees to two years after the birth of the child. An order amending regulations relating to breastfeeding breaks made under the Maternity Protection Acts was also made on that date. These regulations are to support those new mothers who are returning to work, knowing they continue to be supported to keep breastfeeding their child. The extension of this entitlement to employees who give birth within the previous two years is in line with commitments in First 5.
The Act also introduces five days' leave for medical care purposes for parents of children under 12 and for carers. It also provides for a right to request flexible working for parents and carers. Such flexible working arrangements will allow parents and carers to alter their working day or patterns to care for children or others they have caring responsibilities for. The right to request flexible working for parents and carers and remote working for all employees was commenced on 6 March 2024 following the preparation of a code of practice by the Workplace Relations Commission. The Government has committed to reviewing these provisions after two years to consider extending the right to request flexible working to all employees.
Statutory domestic violence leave was also introduced under the Work Life Balance and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, making Ireland one of the first countries in the EU to introduce such leave. Victims of domestic violence are entitled to five days' leave over a period of 12 months to be paid at 100% of the employee’s normal rate to ensure the employee’s economic situation will not be altered. My Department also commissioned Women’s Aid to develop supports for employers to develop their own domestic violence workplace policies.
I will also bring forward shortly legislative proposals to provide for a deferral of maternity leave where a mother falls ill while pregnant or during maternity leave. It is essential we support mothers during such a vulnerable time in their lives. I will also be taking this opportunity to legislate for maternity leave for Members of the Oireachtas.
There is a lot there that I welcome, but what the Minister has said on deferred leave is important. The Irish Cancer Society has been in touch with me and several other Members of the House to get that point across. That is something we would certainly like to see. The domestic violence leave is a superb piece of work and I congratulate the Minister on it. Neither the Minister not I are likely to benefit from the breastfeeding supports, but by God I think anybody who takes on that job of work deserves every bit of support they can get. It is an absolutely fabulous piece of work. There have been huge steps forward with all of these forms of leave, in particular parental leave. With paternal leave I think there is a cultural barrier we need to get over. There are the financial pressures and I think we have gone a long way towards easing that. There are workplace pressures where your employer may not be particularly excited about you taking up your full entitlement. There is also social pressure. The lads might be asking if you are really going to take that amount of time to be at home doing dishes. We need to tackle all of those things as well as the legislative work the Minister has done.
As the Deputy says, the Leave Our Leave campaign from the Irish Cancer Society is concerned with where a woman experiences cancer or a serious illness during her maternity leave and loses the leave while she is recovering. That is something I want to legislate for and I am looking to bring forward proposals on that.
The point on the take-up of paternity leave and parents' leave is important. I do not have the full statistics here, but I recall during Covid when we moved from the two weeks parents' leave to five weeks by adding the initial three weeks, we saw a significant jump in dads taking parents' leave. That might have been aligned with Covid but there was a jump. It is still definitely less than mams, but it was an increase. Speaking personally, I believe we have to look at the rate at which maternity, paternity and parents' leave is paid. I think that is part of the disincentive, but we are taking important measures, and bringing it up to nine weeks' paid parents' leave per parent is a significant step by this Government.
I would not underestimate the cultural handbrake that is also there. There is definitely a societal pressure, in particular on men, to get that fit of child rearing done and get back to work. That is the thinking on it. I do not subscribe to that view. I think that time you put into your child at home is incredibly valuable and, to speak to our earlier question, gives that best start and early start. We need to be serious about supporting the caring economy and that income replacement rate the Minister is talking about is also part of it. We have the twin pressures of, on the one hand, demographic challenges, where we know there will be an increased need for care in our society, and, on the other hand, the acceleration of digitalisation, where we know a lot of even what are currently white-collar jobs will be displaced by technology in the coming years and decades. We need to get serious about rewarding what was traditionally a female segment of the economy and which, for that reason, was undervalued. We need to get real about valuing the caring economy.
One of the key reasons we made parents' leave non-transferable between the two parents was because there is that societal pressure where, if you can transfer it, in a lot of situations dad's time would have gone to mam and that would have been the end of the conversation. We felt it was important to encourage dads in every way possible to spend that very valuable and potentially now 11 weeks' paid leave with their child in those initial two years.
That is important.
I also echo what the Deputy said about valuing the care economy. One of the things I have been focused on in another part of my Department, the early years section, is improving pay for childcare professionals. Following State investment through core funding in 2022, we saw the first ever pay agreement for childcare professionals. As a result of that, 73% of childcare professionals saw a pay increase and I hope in the next few weeks we will see a second pay deal or employment regulation order, ERO, again securing a 5% increase for childcare professionals.
91. Deputy Bríd Smith asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to outline his plans to increase childcare places; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19265/24]
What are the Minister's general plans for increasing childcare places? Will he make a statement on the matter?
I touched on the matter already in answering Deputy Stanton's question.
My Department is progressing a range of actions to ensure the supply of early learning and childcare provision meets demand. Work in this area is being led by a new supply management unit I established earlier this year in my Department. A key part of the supply management unit’s remit is to develop a planning function for monitoring, analysing and forecasting of the supply and demand, similar to the forward planning unit in the Department of Education. The unit will also oversee the administration of new capital investment under the national development plan, NDP, with two strands of funding rolling out this year and next under the building blocks capacity grant. As well as this, the unit is engaging with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage to progress the updating of the 2001 planning guidelines for local authorities on early learning and childcare settings.
In addition to the work of the supply management unit, other work across my Department will increase places. Core funding, which began 2022, has proven to be effective in expanding capacity. Year 2 of the scheme provided for capacity growth of 3% across the whole childcare network, which has materialised and for year 3, which will kickstart in September of this year, there is further funding to allow for a 3% growth in overall capacity. As I mentioned when speaking to Deputy Stanton, we have been engaging with the Department of Education on the guidance it gives to schools about the use of school buildings, especially, as I said earlier, for the potential for use for after-school care to provide capacity in an area where many parents want additional services.
The national action plan for childminding is designed to allow the registration of childminders and for parents using their services to benefit from the national childcare scheme, NCS. Work on that is ongoing at the moment.
The primary focus of the building blocks capacity grant scheme, which is funded under the NDP, is to enhance capacity in the one to three year-old age group where we see some of the biggest pressures right now.
It would be lovely to hear the exact figures for the number of places that the Minister plans to increase by. It sounds like he has a plan, but to me and to all childminding organisations, it is complex and cumbersome. The Minister will be aware that in the Dublin area, almost 60% of providers have reported that they have severe waiting lists for childcare places. After housing, it is probably borne out statistically that this is one of the biggest political issues for most people who have children. Often both parents have to work to afford childcare. However, if they cannot get a place, they cannot keep the work and if they cannot keep the work, their rent or mortgage and God knows what else is impacted.
In my constituency, Dublin South Central, parents regularly call me and write to me begging for help. I often get on the blower to try to get places for them with no success. How will we address this problem?
When I started in this role, costs for parents, lack of pay for staff and sustainability for providers were the big challenges. We have managed to do a significant amount in those three areas. Now capacity is the big challenge and I recognise that. We have a plan. A dedicated unit in my Department is looking at the national situation and putting in place the various measures to support it. Some of it involves providing capital money upfront. We have €80 million this year in capital funding. We will have more in 2025 to grow out the capital schemes to support people to increase capacity, be they private or community providers. We are looking to change the planning regulations to ensure where planning permission is granted for an early years service, it is delivered. I am sure the Deputy can cite examples from her constituency of it not happening. I have seen some in mine as well. I am coming up against time. The payment of staff is important in terms of staff being available to allow providers to use the existing capacity they have. If they do not have staff, they do not have ratios and they may not be able to use all the rooms in a service.
I am aware of all the problems individual childcare centres have in increasing capacity and keeping going. I am also aware of how poorly paid and treated many childcare workers are, albeit that improvements are taking place.
The last woman who contacted me about this prompted me to ask the question. She was stressed out of her mind about the fact that she could not get a place for her 17 month-old child. It looks like she will have to give up her job. She is a relatively young woman. She wants to keep her career. We want women and men to be out working in the workforce. We are short of workers. The whole of society benefits from that. However, she will have to give up her job because no places are available at all in Dublin South Central for one child to be minded. This is disgraceful. If we cannot increase capacity with a sense of urgency, we should look at the system by which we are trying to do it.
I support what has been said. The Minister said that 3% growth is envisaged. Is that for this year and going forward annually or does he envisage it will grow at a greater pace? Will the Minister provide in tabular form later the number of childcare services that have been established, especially in my constituency? I would appreciate it. To allow me to compare, will he include the number that have closed to see whether there is a net gain or net loss?
I have two other supplementary questions. I support Deputy Gould on the Before 5 childcare centre. I am aware the Minister is looking at the possibility of capital funding for new services. The difficulty with Before 5 childcare is that the service wants to be ready for September and if we wait to allow a new plan to materialise from the Department, we might miss the boat on that.
I will also follow up on the planning permission issue that was raised. Who makes the call if a crèche or childcare facility was permitted in a development? Is it at the developer's discretion or do the community childcare facility and local authority make the call?
First, to Deputy Smith, there is a real sense of urgency on the issue of capacity. It is now the big challenge. The big challenge has moved from affordability because we and I, as Minister, acted over a number of budgets to deal with that issue and we have made significant progress. We have a plan. We have capital funding and engagement with other Departments on removing the mechanisms. The situation where someone potentially has to give up work because of not being able to access childcare is serious and that is what we are trying to work to address by providing additional capacity. One of the challenges of reducing the price was that more people took up childcare. That has put greater pressure on the system and we have to act to respond to that.
Where planning is granted and includes a childcare service, that is a matter of enforcement if it is not being done. We want to work with local authorities to make sure the regulations are as clear as possible so that there is no wriggle room if a developer does not want to build it. I heard what Deputies O'Sullivan and Gould said. We are working to see whether we can create a capital fund about sustainability to support existing services that are under pressure because of the age of their buildings. That is as much as I can say on that today, but I am aware of the particular circumstance of that facility.
92. Deputy Bríd Smith asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if he will establish a publicly owned childcare service; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19266/24]
I hope this will expand on the conversation we have just had. Will the Minister and his Department establish a national, publicly-run, funded and owned childcare service?
I thank the Deputy. Reform of the early learning and childcare sector is included in the programme for Government, bringing together the best of community and private provision and the development of a new funding model to ensure an affordable, accessible, sustainable and high-quality sector.
To address pressures on parents, providers and professionals, I have always stated that my goal is to increase State management of, and investment in, the sector. An expert group was established in September 2019 to develop this funding model. Under their terms of reference, the expert group was not asked to propose changes to the current model of delivery, that is, privately-operated provision, rather that it should seek to further achieve policy objectives of quality, affordability, accessibility and contributing to addressing disadvantage in a privately-operated system through increased public funding and public management. In December 2021 the Government approved the 25 recommendations contained in the expert group report, Partnership for the Public Good, and the recommendations were accepted in full by the Government. The implementation of the new funding model is well under way, backed by the record levels of State investment that this year will equate to €1.1 billion. The main part of the new funding will be core funding. Of the 25 recommendations, three are grouped under the title "Role of the State", and in particular the final recommendation states, "In the medium term, the Minister should mandate the Department to examine whether some element of public provision should be introduced alongside private provision".
In January 2024 I established a new supply management unit in my Department. In addition to undertaking more detailed analysis of supply and demand in the sector and administering capital funding, part of its remit will be to begin an exploration of public provision as called for in recommendation 25. Work on that will commence later this year. In terms of the steps I have taken, it has been about cutting costs for parents, increasing pay for staff and increasing support for providers. We are aware of the capacity and challenges but also we are looking to that longer-term public model.
I argue the national childcare scheme is not fit for purpose. It does not fit the demand and it does not fit the need we have in this country. Parents will say to us it is the most convoluted, confusing and unfair system. I will give one instance, and I am picking up on a thing that comes to my attention regularly. Parents are penalised for wanting to spend more time with their children, if the children attend a school or use a childcare service. If parents collect their children early on occasion, it can trigger a massively convoluted attendance rule malarkey that not only impacts on the parents, in terms of a reduction in subsidies and increased fees for them, but it places an onerous administrative burden on the provider of the childcare. Excellent childcare providers are getting caught up in unnecessarily elaborate policing of parent's actions and they tell me they really do not want to have to do this. Why is it so unwieldy? Why are so many providers getting out of childcare provision because of this hotchpotch, convoluted malarkey they have to deal with?
The Deputy is incorrect in saying so many childcare providers are leaving the system. We saw an increase in the overall provision of childcare providers last year and we saw the lowest number of them leaving the system than in the previous five years. Second, the number of children who benefit from the NCS has doubled during my term of office. That does not suggest that parents are unhappy with the system. That suggests that parents recognise the very significant investment the State is putting into the system. I recognise there is an administrative burden on childcare providers and that is why earlier this year I set out very clearly that we are putting an action plan in place to reduce administration. We are bringing in the representative groups of the childcare providers, sitting them down with Pobal and the Department and setting out an action plan on how we can streamline administration to make it easier. Some of those steps have already been implemented.
I am afraid that in my experience, and a lot of Deputies have spoken about it in different ways tonight, the mishmash of services we have are not keeping sufficiently on top of the demand for childcare. A lot of providers are feeling pretty desperate about the sort of administration challenges they face. The reason I asked the question about the provision of a national publicly-funded and publicly-run childcare system is that Ireland is particularly low in terms of its overall spending on childcare. Out of the 38 OECD countries Ireland is number 35 in terms of the amount we spend on childcare, at 0.4% of GDP, while Iceland, Sweden, Norway and France spend nearly three times as much as do other countries. Parents struggle to find places and it is not getting easier for them. When the Minister states there is an increase in capacity of 3%, does that include the closure of so many small providers that existed in communities such as Ballyfermot and Inchicore? Loads of the small providers around the country have been closing, yet the big multiple providers are increasing their capacity.
I absolutely agree we are not spending enough on early years but there is a reason for that. That is because the State only started to invest in childcare in 2008-2009 when the early childhood care and education, ECCE, scheme was first set up. Prior to that, the State stepped away entirely from the early years sector. When the Deputy compares us with Iceland and Sweden, she is comparing us with countries that have invested in this area for decades. I accept the key premise of the Deputy's question but will she recognise that, in the terms of this Government's term in office and since I came into office, there has been €630 million per year of investment in this area? This year it has gone up to €1.1 billion. There are few areas of Government spending where the graph goes up so quickly in a four-year period. That money is being spent on cutting costs for parents, better pay for the staff, and better sustainability for the providers. There are challenges in all three areas. I did not say this area has been fixed but we need to acknowledge there has been progress and that I, and whoever succeeds me in this role, can continue to build on that progress.
I thank the Minister and want to move on to the next question.
To conclude, some of that may well be considered an element of public provision as well.
Minister, please. The time is up.
93. Deputy Claire Kerrane asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the engagement he has had with the Minister for Health on the provision of additional medical supports for communities where Ukrainians and international protection persons have arrived; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18966/24]
The Minister will be well aware of the increased pressure in many of our communities where Ukrainians and international protection persons have arrived and been welcomed, in many cases. I have raised Ballaghaderreen with the Minister many times and the pressure health services there are under. If someone moves into the area now, he or she cannot get a GP. Both GP surgeries in the town are running waiting lists. What specific engagement has the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, had with the Minister for Health? What have the Minister for Health and the HSE offered to these communities via the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, where the populations have increased and communities, both existing and new, are under pressure?
Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, the whole-of-government response has been co-ordinated by a Cabinet committee chaired by the Taoiseach. Due to the impact of the dramatic increase in applicants, matters relating to international protection are also addressed at that Cabinet committee. My engagement with the Minister for Health, Deputy Donnelly, and all other Ministers with responsibilities in the Government's response to the migration pressures is within the framework of the Cabinet committee. The Cabinet committee is supported by a senior officials group and that, again, is under the leadership of the Department of the Taoiseach. The senior officials group consists of senior officials from all Departments, including my Department and the Department of Health. This group meets on a regular basis and issues arising are followed up by the relevant departmental officials as required.
While my Department assists with the Government’s response to ensure that beneficiaries of temporary protection and international protection applicants receive accommodation, in line with Government policy, my colleague, the Minister for Health, co-ordinates the provision of health supports as appropriate.
My officials have regular meetings with the HSE’s national social inclusion office to discuss operational matters. The HSE is provided with information regarding new accommodation centres coming onstream and the number of beneficiaries of temporary protection, BOTP, and international protection applicants in State-provided accommodation across Ireland. These meetings enable officials in the HSE to provide any additional medical supports for communities, if required.
My Department’s community engagement team liaises directly with elected representatives, relevant local authorities, local development companies, and other entities and individuals. The community engagement team, CET, informs all relevant State support services, including the Department of Health and the HSE, of the opening of accommodation centres for both Ukrainians and international protection applicants, and enables them to prepare any additional supports needed to assist residents to settle in to the local community.
The whole-of-government Ukraine response is supported at a local level by the community integration forum in each local authority. Key State agencies, such as the HSE, would be represented on the community integration forums.
I thank the Minister. We are out of time but I will allow one minute.
This is my tenth time to raise Ballaghaderreen and the need for additional practical resources. It has received refugees and international protection persons for seven years now and has nothing to show for it. We have to battle for an extension for the local school. At long last, there has been movement. Funding for the childcare facility has been pulled and we are awaiting a decision on that. There is no access to GPs for people who are moving into the town and existing patients have to wait weeks for appointments.
I would love to know where existing communities have received additional medical supports. I asked the Tánaiste about this last November and he said he would provide me with a list. I am still waiting for that. I would love to know one area in the country that has received additional medical supports. Ballaghaderreen should have received that, but has not. I again ask the Minister of State where the additional health resources are being put in. If they are being put in, Ballaghaderreen should be top of the list, or very close to it, for additional health resources. There is a desperate need for these resources.
I thank the Deputy. She has raised the issue of the need for additional support for Ballaghaderreen. We are dealing with a small but important issue in terms of access to a leisure facility service. I communicated with the Deputy on that earlier today.
Where there is high pressure on health services, we look to see whether measures can be put in place that will divert some of the international protection applicants or Ukrainians from those services. This has been done in a number of locations across the country in conjunction with the HSE and HSE social inclusion. I do not have a full list for the Deputy. I can look to speak to the Minister for Health or HSE; they would have a clear list. We have looked to put in place solutions in certain areas to divert, through the provision of bespoke medical services, Ukrainians and international protection applicant from GP lists so that people do not experience delays beyond the existing pressures that we all recognise are on GP services.
