Holly Cairns
Question:14. Deputy Holly Cairns asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the steps he is taking to address high childcare costs. [15453/22]
View answerThursday, 24 March 2022
Questions (14, 15)
Joe Flaherty
Question:15. Deputy Joe Flaherty asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if he will provide an update on measures to make childcare more affordable and sustainable; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15310/22]
View answerOral answers (8 contributions)
I ask the Minister to provide an update on measures to make childcare more affordable and sustainable.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 14 and 15 together.
Significant investment is being made by my Department to support parents with the costs of early learning and childcare. The national childcare scheme, NCS, is currently supporting thousands of families to offset their costs. A recent review of the NCS showed that 38% of families had more than half their early learning and childcare costs covered by the NCS.
Some 56% of families had more money to spend due to the scheme and 28% of families were working more because of the NCS, with 8% reporting that they would not be in work at all without it. I recognise that the burden on some families remains high and we will need to do more to ensure affordability and sustainability. I outlined earlier the package of measures we are bringing forward in core funding of €221 million in a full year to support early learning and care and school-age childcare services. This will have a primary impact on affordability because the payment of this additional money is linked to a commitment to a fee freeze by childcare providers which will immediately bring about some degree of certainty for parents.
In budget 2022 we have also extended the universal NCS subsidies for children of all ages up to 15. Previously the universal subsidy only applied up to the age of three and now it applies to the age of 15 which we estimate will benefit approximately 40,000 children in the course of a full year.
Since August 2020 early learning services been able to access the employment wage subsidy scheme, which has allowed many of them not to increase their fees. We have seen that the previous very high increases in childcare fees did not manifest in the years 2020 to 2021. It is important to recognise that more money needs to be invested in the national childcare scheme and all three parties in government are committed to doing so. I hope to be able to begin that process in budget 2023.
I thank the Minister. I hear regularly from constituents who raise issues around affordability and availability of childcare and it is an issue that is becoming more pressing now. When we welcome so many young children to Ireland from Ukraine, we also have to provide for them. It is very important that we address the affordability issue here. Many more childcare workers tell me of how they want to have an opportunity to stay working and to progress in the sector as valued employees.
In Partnership for the Public Good: A New Funding Model for Early Learning and Care and School-Age Childcare, the report of the expert group on a new funding model for early learning care, school-age childcare issues such as core funding, tackling disadvantage, affordability measures, fee management and the role of the State were addressed. What steps will be taken to make childcare more affordable?
People are in contact with me regularly. A lady came to my office the other day who has had her second baby. She told me that she was thinking of giving up work as she cannot afford childcare which, she said, was more expensive than her mortgage. That is a worry.
The Deputy has raised a wide range of questions there that I probably will not be able to address comprehensively in one minute. The core funding is there this year to ensure that childcare workers are supported, reflecting the point that the Deputy has made that they are not getting adequately paid. It is also to support the sustainability of services in order that the 4,500 facilities that are open remain open and that there is encouragement there for new services to open. It also begins advancing that affordability element by ensuring that these fees are not raised in the 2022-23 academic year.
The Deputy is correct, however, because crèche fees are still too high, even when they have been capped for that one year. That is why my focus and that of the Government for budget 2023 is on the national childcare scheme. That is the direct subvention the parents have received. We have broadened that out this year by making it available up to the age of 15 but we need to put significantly more money into the NCS and all Government parties share a commitment to do that.
I know that the Minister is fully committed, as is the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, who was spokesperson for children previously. It is important that parents understand how committed we and the Minister are and communication to all of the different agencies is key and of great importance here. No mother should ever have to come into any Senator or Deputy’s office and say that she might have to give up work because she cannot afford childcare. We have excellent workers within the childcare sector who are very good in what they do and we are very lucky in that respect. Overall, it is important that we do our best to support these workers.
What role does the expert group continue to play? Will this be an advisory role and can the Minister tell me what its status is and what will be that group's next steps?
The childcare sector, like every other sector, is looking at increasing costs right across the board. The cap that is in place for some of them is going to be inoperable because of the dramatic rise in costs. The Minister needs to look at that issue specifically.
He also needs to look at the broader issue of affordability. Even in a county like my own, a rural county constituency of Roscommon and east Galway, we have very significant problems on the availability now of childcare because many providers are pulling out. They just cannot make ends meet and cannot get staff because of the pay rates that are in the sector at present.
There is something fundamentally wrong with a sector where the people who are packing the baby wipes on to the shelves of the supermarkets are being paid more than the staff who are minding the children and using those very baby wipes in our childcare facilities across the country. That needs to be addressed urgently.
I thank the Deputy for his contribution. That is the reason that I am bringing forward a package of €221 million in core funding for the childcare sector in a full year. That money is primarily designed to address the issue specifically raised by the Deputy on the rates of pay that our fantastic childcare professionals receive at the moment. Core funding, dependent on the employment regulation order that is being negotiated at the joint labour committee right now, will deliver increased rates of pay for those childcare workers, which means that they will not be leaving the sector and that the services that exist now will not have to shut rooms because they will be able to continue to get staff. That is linked to the fee freeze and because if we are giving this very substantial amount of money to the sector, the State has to get something back, which is why we have the fee freeze. As the Deputy has correctly identified that is not enough which is why the focus is going to be on increasing the NCS in next year’s budget.
To address Deputy Murnane O’Connor’s question on the expert group, this group has been stood down now and it is now within my Department’s remit.
The final question in this section will be put by Deputy Matthews who will only have one return call on it.