Ms Ida Lane:

I thank the committee for the invitation to speak. I am here on behalf of the Association of Childhood Professionals, ACP, a voluntary membership organisation representing practitioners in early years and school-age childcare. As a professional association, all our members have a minimum of a level 5 qualification in early years. This includes our members who are childminders. I have been providing home-based early years and after-school care in my family home for the past 14 years. I started childminding by providing a service to three preschool children. With this number the regulations precluded me from registering with the HSE so, like many other childminders, I became a member of the professional childminders organisation, Childminding Ireland, and got childminding insurance, Garda vetting and paediatric first aid training. I have done child protection training as well as voluntarily notifying my service with my local childcare committee. In 2009, to enable my service to survive the introduction of the free preschool year, I registered with the HSE and opened my early childhood care and education, ECCE, preschool catering for six preschool children, which I still run in the heart of my home to this day. I therefore feel I am well positioned to speak here about the difficulties of working with increased regulation, inspection and oversight within the home environment.

I have been asked to set out what I see as the strengths and challenges of the recently published national childminding action plan. The strengths include a recognition that childminders are an integral part of the childcare landscape in Ireland and that childminders offer care to multi-age groups of children, as in family groups, preschool, schoolgoing children and after-school care. They can all be catered for. There is a recognition that low adult-child ratios and consistent caring in a family home setting offer positive well-being outcomes for children. There is acknowledgement that childminders can offer a wrap-around childcare option that can be flexible and negotiable and, where possible, offers flexibility in respect of early, late, overnight and weekend arrangements. The action plan builds on recommendations, experiences and expertise gathered from childminders, children, parents, childminding networks, organisations and county childcare committees. Formal recognition is finally being given to the childminding sector, recognising that children, families and communities have benefited from the quality of care offered through the dedication and commitment of childminders who offer their childcare services. Its approach is comprehensive, identifying core areas of implementation, namely regulations and inspection, training and support, funding and financial support, consultation and communication.

While I welcome the formal recognition the action plan gives to the central placement of childminding in the Irish childcare landscape, there are, in my view, certain challenges within the plan. The timeframe for the full implementation of the plan is overly ambitious, considering that there are thousands of non-regulated childminders caring for children that have absolutely no idea that the regulation of childminding is rapidly approaching or that they will need to engage in accredited training and meet regulations and face inspections. Serious investment in communication and consultation will have to be made to engage these childminders. Connections were made with only a small percentage of working childminders, generally those who were already engaged with Tusla, Childminding Ireland and local county childcare committees. These childminders are committed to raising professional standards in childcare and welcome appropriate regulation but their view may not be shared by many who see childminding as a short-term and more casual job. I have concerns also that the Department sees the networking groups as being their main communication highway to reach out and contact or connect with many or all childminders.

I am also concerned that experienced, knowledgeable childminders will be excluded from applying for childminding development officer positions due to not having level 8 degrees that are focused on centre-based rather than home-based care and education. Childminders must be centrally involved in the development of a phased training and qualifications framework that identifies necessary training, desirable training and, finally, as childminding incrementally become increasingly professionalised, the qualifications that are needed or the "icing on the cake". All training needs to be accredited and, to allow for professional and personal commitments, training should be broken down into smaller "micro credentials" that incrementally build to a full qualification. We should note that increased regulation, administration, inspection, audits, etc., will result in a higher financial cost for childminders. Significant State investment will be required to make sure that this increased cost does not mean that childminders can only operate by charging parents more. We also need to be mindful that significant investment continues to be required for the development of centre-based provision, both early years and school-age.

The funding required to implement the action plan cannot be to the detriment of continued increased investment in the area of centre-based provision.

We also need to be mindful that small home- and centre-based services, subject to current regulations, standards, inspections and oversight, may lose out to childminders, who may be subject to less onerous inspections and regulations.

I thank committee members for listening and welcome their questions.