Ms Tanya Ward:

My apologies to the committee. I got stuck in a medical appointment I could not get out of. To add to what Dr. Feely has said, the Pobal data is telling us that about one in four is leaving the sector. The main issue is the lack of parity of esteem. I was talking to the professor from Mary Immaculate College yesterday and she said they all went in with the same aspirations but the primary school teachers will stay in that area of education while the early years educators will not because they cannot live on the wages and salaries.

One of the big things that needs to happen is we need to give parity of esteem to the staff, and in any move towards affordability and a public model, the first thing has to be recognition, pay and conditions for the staff working in the services. As Dr. Feely said, children benefit when qualified people are looking after them. We do not pay enough attention to the experiences of very small children. In fact, aged zero to one is the most important time. One would often hear people saying that you do not need a degree to change a nappy. Actually, the research says you do. There is a truth to it.