Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank everyone for being here today. I am on the opposite end. I am a granny so I am the lady who can hand them back after a few hours. I love to have them but then I say "here are the mammies, thank God". I am a mother of four children so I have seen the role childcare providers - I always say educators - play. They kept the country running during the Covid-19 pandemic. They were a part of making the system work. We had huge challenges. I totally respect them and am mindful of childcare. Politics is a calling. Childcare and education is also a calling. The people who work in the sector love working with children. It is a lovely thing to give back to society.

SIPTU spoke about early years educators and I am concerned about what was said about the minimum wage being €13.65 per hour, which is now €1.15 less than the living wage. It is a huge issue because the biggest issue is recruitment and retention. All the witnesses spoke about it today. In Carlow, I have seen many childcare educators return to study to be primary teachers. Many of them are doing the courses in Hibernia College or other courses. We have to make sure we appreciate childcare workers and pay them proper wages. That can only be done with proper core funding. That is the biggest issue. We have to give more core funding. That is why we are losing staff. I firmly believe that.

Some of my questions have been answered. This matter was raised by the Association of Childcare Professionals. No one minds inspections, here is no problem with that, but the issue is the amount of paperwork. I have met Ms Dunne on several occasions and I am close to many of the childcare providers in my area of Carlow-Kilkenny, as is Deputy Funchion. When we meet them they tell us that they almost need one staff member just doing paperwork. That cannot be allowed to happen. It is not fair. It takes up a lot of time. We really need to look at that.

I took some good points from Early Childhood Ireland. We need a five-year plan. I agree with what it said about investment. I welcome that we have the €1 billion and one of the Government's priorities is to invest in childcare, but it now needs to be brought to another level. We need a five-year plan and look at how we can put extra funding into it because we have to keep childcare providers in operation. People and families have to go out to work. We have to ensure we have proper funding in place for them. One of the ways it can be done - this is big - relates to capacity as a measure. The measure should not be children's attendance. There should not be a funding requirement linked to a child's attendance. How is the provider to know that Billy or Mary will get up in the morning and not be able to go to school? They could be down one child today and another child tomorrow. I have said to the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, that this needs to be addressed.

I will move on to some of Ms Dunne's points. We need to find out about the access and inclusion model, AIM, report that has not been published yet.