Ms June Tinsley:

I thank the committee for the invitation to attend. As members may know, Barnardos has been a long-time campaigner for greater investment in quality early years services. We run 42 projects across the country, working in areas of disadvantage, and in our early years services, every day we see children who are absolutely thriving as a result of the quality of interactions, relationships and activities they undertake. We believe that helping a child to build his or her social, emotional and educational repertoire from an early age is a great leveller. Quality early years services provide the foundations which enable children to escape a life of poverty and disadvantage and permit them reach their full potential. We know there is a huge bank of evidence to verify the benefits of high-quality early care and education for all children from age two onwards. These benefits are greatest for children who come from areas of disadvantage. Children from the age of two onwards do better in high-quality care and education services than they do if they remain at home on a full-time basis. Early care and education, when it is of high quality, produces widespread benefits for the child, their family and wider society. It raises educational outcomes, enhances employability, reduces child poverty, improves health and prevents social problems. We know this as a result of the many longitudinal studies that have been undertaken. We also know, from an economic perspective, the cost-benefit analyses that have been conducted all show a huge rate of return.

On after-school care and activities, research has shown that participation in after-school programmes helps children’s social and emotional development, eases their transition between primary and secondary school and lowers the risk of early school leaving. Currently, the after-school care sector in Ireland is very disjointed and unregulated and care is often unaffordable. There is need for a co-ordinated national strategy for this sector in order to enhance quality, accessibility and affordability.

With regard to the policy context, we know that Ireland has the highest fees for child care due to continued under-investment on the part of the State. Ireland only invests 0.4% of GDP annually in this area in comparison to the OECD average of 0.7%. We also know that services vary in quality and availability and that staff are underpaid. In addition, childminders, who are the preferred choice of care for many parents, are largely unregulated. We are aware that the Department spends €260 million annually on many targeted schemes, as well as the free preschool year, and that it has recently beefed up the inspection regimes and imposed minimum qualifications.

Barnardos welcomes the 2015 country-specific recommendations of the EU Commission urging the State to act to address child care as a way of reducing child poverty and removing a major barrier preventing parents from taking up employment or training. The recession has impacted on families with young children the most, leaving one in eight children in consistent poverty. As Ireland emerges from recession and the public finances improve, it is imperative to seize this opportunity and ensure that wise investment choices are made. Barnardos urges the committee to make brave recommendations that will guarantee a link between public funding and quality services, enhance availability and support those most in need. On foot of the wealth of evidence that exists, we believe it is clear that investment in subsidised quality early care and education and after-school systems can deliver on all of these.

Barnardos would be vehemently opposed to the introduction of tax credits as a solution to make child care and after-school care more affordable. In our view, such a move would be extremely costly and do nothing for improving the quality of the service. From the perspective of parents, the amount of credit obtained would still fall far short of the fees being charged and would do nothing for those low-income parents who are outside the tax net or seeking to move off welfare. It also will not stop fees being increased for support services with highly-trained staff.

Opting for policy that favours tax credits instead of investing in public services ignores the international evidence of ways to effectively tackle child poverty and address wider structural inequality.

As we focus on budget 2016, the next general election and the centenary of the 1916 Rising, we owe it to today’s children to create a better future for them and their children. It is unacceptable that by the age of five, children from the poorest fifth of homes are nearly a year behind children from middle-income households in developmental outcomes. There must be clear, decisive action to tackle this entrenched inequality. The Minister for Finance announced in the spring economic statement that up to €1.5 billion will be available for budget 2016. Barnardos believes it is a mistake to split this money 50:50 between tax cuts and investment. Instead, the majority must be earmarked for investment in public services including the development of a subsidised, quality early years and after-school care system. Such a system would take a number of years to be introduced so Barnardos believes that some initial core steps should be taken immediately to commence this journey. These initial steps would include reforming parental leave so that paid leave is available to parents to enable them to stay with their child for the first year of his or her life; extending the community child care subvention scheme by making subsidised places available in privately run early years services; introducing a new 100% subsidy for families with identified high levels of need, with access on the basis of referral from Tusla; and retaining the free pre-school year, improving it and moving towards the introduction of a second year. For those families who prefer home settings, funding schemes should be set up for registered child minders so that they can meet quality standards. Finally, in terms of after-school care provision, it is important that any public funding invested in this sector is met with a guarantee of quality.