Ms Evelyn Reilly:

I thank the committee for inviting me to attend today and for an opportunity to make a presentation.

My name is Evelyn Reilly. I am the owner-manager of Kidz@Play playschool located in Maynooth and Kilcock, County Kildare. It is a great honour for me to tell the committee that I shall celebrate 30 years of providing preschool education in the Maynooth area.

In terms of my own academic qualifications, 30 years ago I sought out whatever was available because I believed in qualifications. Over the period of 30 years I have successfully achieved an honours degree in early childhood education and care. I also secured the first presidential scholarship for a masters by research in the Institute of Technology, Carlow. My topic was the impact of the ECCE and I recently submitted my paper. My staff team is comprised of four personnel who have gained honours degrees and also staff who have attained level 6 qualifications.

In this presentation, I will draw on all that experience, my own, as well as the experience of running a preschool for 30 years. I will share with members the reality of and some challenges associated with working in the early childhood education setting. I must start with the positive because after 30 years, I must state it is the most dynamic, rewarding, challenging, busy, ever-changing and, not forgetting, fun career in which to be. I could not mention many other jobs in which I could stand in onesies on UTV Ireland on national pyjama day to talk about the €300,000 raised for Irish Autism Action or in which, having been dressed in a tiara by a child, I mistakenly could go to the bank while wearing it. When we are asked why do we work in a sector that is so underpaid and undervalued, the answer is the children. It is the children who embrace us and share with us their vision and view on the world. They are the ones who hook us in through their play and are the ones who keep us going and make us so passionate about what we do, their care and education.

The early childhood care and education, ECCE, scheme has afforded opportunities for all of Ireland’s children. It is a chance to make a difference in the lives of children by providing quality early childhood care and education and I acknowledge that the essence of the scheme is a good and positive thing. However, there are many issues regarding the ECCE scheme which are endangering its effectiveness and functioning and which, unless corrected, will make it unworkable and I will set out some of them. The capitation is not enough to do what we must do. The Government set that capitation rate and although I have been in this sector for a long time, we were never consulted on how much it took to run it. It is not fit for purpose; it is not paying me to do what I must do and I am not the only one. The sustainability of my service and other services across the country and County Kildare, in which I am embedded, are dependent on an increase in capitation. For those members who are not aware, my service receives the higher capitation rate because we are degree-led. We get €2,774 per child for 38 weeks. Even if one omitted the closure of the service for the summer months, as an employer I still must pay for 42 weeks for my staff team to have their legal holiday entitlements. The current model of the scheme covers 15 contact hours per week. I have heard other submissions today and note the non-contact hours involve documenting, planning, reflecting, meeting parents and staff meetings, all of which are essential to quality services and yet this critical work is not being supported through the 15-hour-per-week model. This current capitation must be stretched to do that. There are other issues pertaining to the capitation that are not workable. Members may not be aware of this but the scheme is not compulsory and if a child does not turn up for more than 20 days, the service must return capitation. I was obliged to do this in respect of a child who took ill on holidays abroad and who was hospitalised. I did not tell my staff team that week that they or the rent would not get paid because that child's 20 days were up. There are other issues relating to the scheme that are not workable. One anomaly is that national schools are not obliged to return capitation in respect of a missing child.

As for the children, they are benefiting from the scheme. Research to date suggests this, as does my own research after 30 years. However, the scheme is letting down some children. Since the introduction of the scheme, increased numbers of children with additional needs are attending preschools. While it is right and just that they should be in the communities in which they live, there is no support. I cannot employ a special needs assistant, SNA, that the Government will fund. As that is not available to me, for example, if a child is lucky to have a diagnosis, he or she may come with an SNA for two days a week but what about the other days? We do not have that. My point is this breaches their rights. While they have an entitlement to the scheme, they have no right to participate. Although Ireland has signed up to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, their right to participation is not being considered in that regard. Early intervention is key but investment is required and I must be able to access an SNA. While this affects lots of children, for reasons of confidentiality I obviously will not discuss names. However, in the case of one child in particular, an SNA is not being funded but yet, a taxi has been provided to the child in question to attend a unit 20-something miles away, which simply does not add up. Another anomaly is that although schools have issues with SNAs, they can access an SNA, whereas we cannot.

As for disadvantaged children, the very essence of the scheme had its origin in the need to support disadvantaged children and its universality means that all children access it. However, the Early Start programme, which is an intervention programme in designated disadvantaged areas, deems it necessary to give double the capitation to those children in preschools in the Early Start programmes that are in the delivering equality of opportunity in schools, DEIS, areas. I suggest that it is not areas that are disadvantaged; it is children and there are hundreds of disadvantaged children in my preschool and in others nationwide. I would like to be able to access additional funding for these children because the work we do with those children is different, as is the support for those families.