Shane Cassells (Meath West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise the role of the Department of Education and Skills in the provision of the early years education programme. In the past few years, the Department of Children and Youth Affairs developed an early childhood care and education programme which also falls under the remit of the Departments of Health and Education and Skills. People in the early childhood sector find they fall between three stools. In the Action Plan for Education 2017, one of the key themes is the increased quality of learning in early years. The Department states:

We will continue to actively support the Department of Children and Youth Affairs to improve the quality of early year’s provision. We will support the implementation of Síolta and Aistear (the early years quality and curricular frameworks).

The quality frameworks will be supported with training for mentors and training and upskilling of the workforce.

The recent furore at budget time when a small amount of money, relatively speaking, was given as an additional allocation to the early years sector shows the level of ignorance that still exists in this country. There are people in this sector who are championing a programme of education and they were belittled by those who were arguing against that allocation of funding and trying to pigeon hole them as simply childminders. I know Mr. Ó Foghlú would know that those working in this sector are pioneering education there. I would hope that the Department of Education and Skills would be an advocate for them and that it would speak about this sector coming within its remit.

In regard to the commitment in its action plan to deliver quality learning, the majority of people the Department is assisting are working for the minimum wage and my question is whether this is acceptable. I also addressed this question to the Secretary General of the Department of Children and Youth Affairs when he was before the Committee of Public Accounts. Is it acceptable that the level of pay for staff who are being asked to implement Government policy initiatives in early education is so divergent from the pay of primary school teachers?