Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I want to talk about the Oireachtas Library and Research Service report on public provision of early childhood education. It is only a three-page report but I think it is a dynamite report. The report finds that the key challenges to universal provision in Ireland - in other words, provision for all - are the negative economic impact of the Covid-19 outbreak and what it describes as the market-driven approach to early childhood education and care in this country. It states that early childhood care and education in this country is characterised by low state investment, low wages and high fees. It states that 99% of pre-primary services, that is for children aged three to five years, is in the private sector, whereas the OECD average is 34%. It finds that the average wage for workers in the sector is €11.44 per hour, whereas the living wage is nearly a euro higher than that at €12.30. It finds that early childcare and education fees for under-threes are the highest in Europe alongside the Netherlands, the UK and Switzerland. Earlier today the situation was summed up by the Desmond Chair of Early Childhood Education in Dublin City University, Professor Mathias Urban, who said the system here is fragmented, very expensive and does not produce good results for children, families or the state.

The report quotes from a survey done last year by Yerkes and Javornik which found high levels of access, availability, affordability and quality in countries which had public childcare systems, instancing Iceland, Slovenia and Sweden, and the opposite in those which had lower levels of state investment, instancing the Netherlands, Australia and the UK. The report finds that in Germany when there was a switch to full public provision of childcare there was a decline in child abuse and neglect; an increase in child birth rates; an improvement in the social and emotional development of children; and, an improvement in maternal life satisfaction. To repeat, it states that the obstacles to universal childcare provision are the economic consequences of Covid and the market-driven system.

There are no costings included. Some will ask if the country can afford to move towards universal public provision. I think in the light of this data and this report the question is framed the wrong way. The question is, can we afford not to do that? Low-paid childcare workers and hard-pressed parents would say that we cannot afford not to move towards this. I would favour a system which is free and which is funded through steeply progressive taxation with particular concentration on the big corporations and the very highest income earners.

My question relates to financing. Are there plans in place, and if there are can the witnesses describe what they are, to do some costings on the type of provision that is mentioned in this dynamite report?