Dáil debates
Wednesday, 30 January 2013
Topical Issue Debate
Child Care Services
12:15 pm
Ciara Conway (Waterford, Labour)
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I thank the Minister for her attendance. The two key themes in childminding are the recognition of the service provided by the childminder and the regulation required. It is estimated that 50,000 young children in Ireland are cared for every day by childminders.
However, only 1% of paid childminders are currently subjected to inspection. This is a quite stark figure.
Childminding is the number-one choice of parents who wish to return to education, training or work. As the Minister will know, children's services data are often scarce. Unfortunately, they are scarce in respect of this issue. Approximately 19,000 paid non-relative childminders care for young children every day. In the past ten years, the role of the childminder advisory officers who have been employed by various child care committees at both city and county levels throughout the country has been about trying to regulate and engage with the 19,000 paid non-relative childminders. They have been helping them to implement the national childminding guidelines set by the Department of Children and Youth Affairs. Officers have been providing childminders - who are predominantly women and who have been providing an excellent and flexible service of the kind required - with access to supports and training in regard to health and safety, child protection, fire safety, diet, healthy living and even escape plans, all of which give assurance to parents when they drop their children to a childminder's home.
In the past, childminding constituted a large proportion of what was called the informal economy. After the recommendations of the expert group were implemented in 2000, a tax exemption was put in place for childminders who earn less than €15,000 per year. Bearing in mind the removal of the role in question from the city and county child care committees, childminders are concerned over who will take on the administrative role and oversee the system to allow childminders to continue to provide a vital service for young children. I refer in particular to a constituency such as mine, Waterford, where there is not a proliferation of purpose-built child care facilities. Childminders offer the assurance that parents want. It is beneficial for very young children, some as young as six months, to be cared for as part of a one-on-one arrangement in a home. Often sibling groups are part of the equation. This is reassuring to the parents who are going to work, education or training and good for the development of the child.
There is considerable concern. I had a public meeting with a number of childminders on Monday in Dungarvan, County Waterford. I noted in particular the passion and commitment to service of the group, whose members were all women but for one. They felt they had been on a journey in recent years in terms of professionalising themselves and improving their standards and the kind of care they provide to children. They now feel the rug has been pulled from under them.
12:25 pm
Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this matter for debate. I am aware of her interest in it and share her views. I, too, believe childminders have an important role to play in the continuum of child care provision. I have always believed this. Childminding is certainly the form of care of choice among parents, particularly for very young children.
It is fair to pay tribute to childminders throughout the country. Under the Child Care (Pre-School Services) (No. 2) Regulations 2006, childminders taking care of more than three pre-school children from different families in the childminder's home are required to notify their service to the pre-school inspectorate of the HSE, and they are subject to inspection and report by the inspectorate on a regular basis. This regime does not apply where there are fewer than three children. Some believe it should apply and the Deputy hinted at this.
Measures have been put in place to support childminders who are exempt from the regulation to notify voluntarily. This has not been taken up to a large degree, despite the presence of some specialist help for those in the childminding sector. I want to examine this further to determine the reason and what can be done to encourage more childminders to notify the HSE voluntarily so they will receive the kinds of supports availed of by those in the group the Deputy met some nights ago. The majority of childminders have not notified the relevant authorities.
The measures include the introduction of a system for voluntary notification of childminders, and the introduction of a child care services relief that allows a voluntarily notified childminder to mind up to three children without paying tax on the earnings, and to make a PRSI contribution. These measures are formally recognised in national guidelines for childminders published in 2007.
In 2002, the Health Service Executive agreed to fund a number of posts for childminding advisory officers who, in many cases, but not all, work with city and county child care committees. We are lucky to have so many city and county child care committees. Over the past decade in particular, they have done considerable work in supporting the child care sector. My Department is bringing the committees together such that we now have a national approach and perspective. We receive the benefit of the committees' experience and learn precisely what is happening in the sector. We learn policy lessons and inform decision-making on the basis of their experiences.
Despite the advisory and additional supports, including training, a small capital grant scheme and the introduction of a tax relief for childminding in 2006, the increase in the number of voluntarily notified childminders since 2004, from 500 to 1,250, has been relatively small.
In recent years, HSE funding for the childminding advisory officer posts has gradually decreased and is no longer in place in some areas. While any reduction in funding or posts is regrettable, it is important to note that supports for the childminding sector continue to form an integral part of the work of city and county child care committees. I want to and will ensure this continues to be the case. The committees are now well-established and effective bodies at local level.
In 2012, my Department provided €11.3 million in annual funding to city and county child care committees to enable them to carry out their functions. In addition in 2012, my Department provided €220,000 to the committees for childminding development grants. This shows that despite the change in arrangements pertaining to those dealing with childminding in the child care committees, development remains an integral part of the work the committees do. I intend that this continue.
Childminders will continue to have access to support, training and advice at a local level. The support forms a mainstreamed element of the work of the committees. This work includes notifying childminders of training opportunities, providing important networking opportunities and supporting the voluntary notification system. However, noting the Deputy's point that the loss of a CMAO post may lead to local uncertainty among childminders, I have asked my Department to engage with all city and county child care committees to ensure these supports are communicated, known and easily available to local childminders. In addition, the HSE has advised it will continue to provide support to city and county child care committees with respect to support for childminders. Tomorrow, I am to meet all local HSE managers, with whom I will take up this point.
We are working on the first-ever national early-years strategy. I have asked the expert group chaired by Dr. Eilis Hennessy to examine the role of the childminder. I want this strategy to be a dynamic, integrated and innovative blueprint for the future of the early-years childminding sector. Decisions on how best to support and regulate the sector will be addressed in the strategy.
Ciara Conway (Waterford, Labour)
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I thank the Minister for her response. I acknowledge her commitment to the area of childminding and child care. We are at a very interesting stage in regard to the early-years sector. The Minister is correct that childminding must be valued and regarded as an integral part of the strategy as we proceed. In the past, people have dismissed childminding out of hand as baby-sitting, but it is a lot more than that. It requires due recognition and regulation, which childminders are seeking.
Scotland has a registration system, not a notification system, for all early years services, including childminders. In Australia it is called home-based day care. It is about language also and the way we regulate that. No childminder in Scotland is exempt. Anybody who looks after one or more children under 16 for reward must register if they do so for more than two hours a day on six or more days of the year. People are required to do that because that is another loophole in that a person must voluntarily notify if they are looking after preschool children but if they are providing after-school care there is no onus on them to register or be Garda vetted. As we move forward on the protection of children that is something that must be examined. In terms of after-school policy, childminders are perfectly set to help us in looking for the places we so badly need. They are flexible and they have the transport often required to bring children to and from school, and they can facilitate looking after sibling groups.
The registration requirements in Scotland include personal references, police checks on the potential childminder and every other adult in the home, inspection of the home to ensure it is safe and suitable, and public liability insurance. There are a number of other initiatives that have worked very well in Scotland for a number of years.
Above all what we want to ensure for children, particularly young children in this critical stage of their development, is they are cared for in an appropriately supportive environment where they will be able to reach their milestones but also where the childminder feels they have the security and safety in terms of Garda vetting and access to the support and training they so badly want and in which they have eagerly engaged in recent years.
12:35 pm
Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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If the group the Deputy met would like to make a submission to me I can ensure their views are submitted to the Early Years Strategy Group also. That would be worthwhile.
Traditionally the State has taken the view that if parents make a private decision to have another person look after their child it should be exempt from over-regulation as long as only three children are being looked after by that person. As the Deputy pointed out, other countries have not taken that approach and it may be that attitudes here are changing given safety concerns and questions the Deputy rightly raises about proper standards and ensuring that children are in a setting where their development is being supported in the best possible way. That is the reason it would be interesting to get the experience from other countries, which the Early Years Strategy Group will do, examine the position here and make some decisions about the best way to support the sector. Registration rather than a heavy inspection regime may be the way forward because it is clear that voluntary registration has not appealed to the vast majority of childminders. As the Deputy is aware, it has been a very informal sector and in terms of moving it on to a more formal sector, we will have to examine how best to do that and its impact. That will form part of the early years strategy because it is what many parents choose and therefore it is where many young children are cared for and it behoves us to examine this issue and make the very best decisions with regard to it.