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Childcare Services

Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 14 July 2022

Thursday, 14 July 2022

Questions (604)

Ruairí Ó Murchú

Question:

604. Deputy Ruairí Ó Murchú asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth his plans to bolster the viability of childcare providers, including plans to reduce the cost of childcare to parents, increase wages to workers in the sector and enhance career progression of workers in the sector; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39151/22]

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Written answers

In December 2021, Government adopted the 25 recommendations contained in an Expert Group report, "Partnership for the Public Good: A New Funding Model for Early Learning and Care (ELC) and School-Age Childcare (SAC)". The new funding model will support delivery of ELC and SAC for the public good, for quality and affordability for children, parents and families. To achieve this, there is a need for greater State investment and greater public management of provision.Core Funding, which begins in September, is the new funding stream worth €221 million in full year costs to start this partnership for the public good between the State and providers. Its primary purpose is to improve pay and conditions in the sector as a whole and improve affordability for parents as well as ensuring a stable income to providers. Core Funding allows for an estimated 19% increase in the total cost base for the sector to be absorbed without any increase to fees for parents.

Core Funding will support the quality of services by better enabling providers to attract and retain staff; establish career structures; introduce or improve other features of provision that are demonstrated to contribute to quality (e.g. non-contact time, planning, training, curriculum implementation). Staff costs comprise on average approximately 70% of services' operating costs. €138 million has been allocated as part of the Core Funding package to contribute to staff costs. This is in addition to existing income from other funding schemes and parents' fees.The introduction of fee management measures is one of the recommendations contained in 'Partnership for the Public Good'. Fee management will start with the requirement for providers to maintain fees at or below September 2021 levels to access Core Funding in 2022. This will give parents greater certainty about what they will be charged and ensure that increases to National Childcare Scheme (NCS) subsidies are not absorbed by fee increases. This will be developed further in future years.Under Core Funding, the vast majority of services will see an increase in funding, and no service will see a decrease in funding. For any service that does experience financial difficulties, a Sustainability Fund will be in place. This new strand of the Sustainability Fund, linked to Core Funding, will be designed to provide an extra safety net for providers. This will be open to both private and community providers.

In relation to the workforce, I firmly believe the level of pay for early years educators and school-age childcare practitioners should reflect the value of their work for children, families, society and the economy.

The State is not the employer, and my Department does not set wage levels nor determine staff working conditions. However, I am doing all that is in my power to address the issue.

In particular, I began a process in December 2020 to examine the possibility of regulating pay and conditions and the suitability of a Joint Labour Committee for the sector. This process culminated in the establishment of a Joint Labour Committee for Early Years Services, which began meeting in December 2021. The outcomes of the Joint Labour Committee will be supported by the new Core Funding stream.

In addition, in December 2021, I published "Nurturing Skills: The Workforce Plan for Early Learning and Care and School-Age Childcare, 2022-2028", which includes commitments to develop career pathways, promote careers in the sector, and strengthen supports for continuing professional development, which will complement efforts to improve pay and conditions of employment in the sector.

Commitments in Nurturing Skills are organised under five pillars:

- Establishing a career framework;

- Raising qualification levels;

- Developing a national Continuing Professional Development system;

- Supporting recruitment, retention and diversity; and

- Moving towards regulation of the workforce.

Successful delivery of commitments under the five pillars will be supported by three "key enablers" that are identified in Nurturing Skills:

- Improvement in pay and conditions of employment;

- Coordination of the quality support infrastructure; and

- Ongoing engagement with the profession.

A Monitoring Committee is being established with the task of monitoring the implementation of Nurturing Skills. A comprehensive Implementation Plan is included within Nurturing Skills and covers the first phase of implementation from 2022-2024.

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