Ms Avril McMonagle:

The introduction of the free preschool year in 2009-2010 marked a turning point, not only for the early childhood sector but also in the work of city and county child care committees. As my colleague highlighted, this sees us increasingly dedicated to managing administrative processes associated with five core child care funding programmes and grant initiatives. Since its introduction last year, child care committees have supported more than 4,500 early years services to access and administer their compliance requirements via the Department's new online system. We are currently administrating almost €3 million of grant funding through the learner fund to 2,860 members of the workforce who are upskilling as part of this initiative. The transition from supporting not only early childhood services but also parents alongside the administration of child care funding programmes has been a challenge for county child care committees, especially in the context of a reduction in overall funding by 20% over the same period. The challenges faced by the early childhood sector are constant and have been well communicated to the committee by previous contributors.

However, as a collective of organisations that exclusively has direct reach into all 4,500 early childhood services nationally, we would like to share our perspective on how these challenges manifest at local level and their correlation with, and repercussions for, our work. The introduction of the various child care funding programmes, while overall a welcome development, have brought an element of challenge and change that early childhood services were never established to cope with. Prior to the introduction of the child care funding programmes, the only engagement early childhood services had was with the then HSE inspectorate. Currently, compliance validation involves Pobal, Tusla and NERA and the forthcoming education-focused inspections will result in the Department of Education and Skills staff visiting services for the first time.

Imminent changes to company law and voluntary sector governance will also increase pressure points for the sector. Each policy change or new initiative has a direct correlation with an increase in demand for local support, much of which is individual and on a one-to-one basis. Many of these supports are difficult to measure in our performance reports and their specialised and individual nature makes them extremely resource intensive from our perspective.

Child care committees have played a fundamental role in quality development over the years. The initial phase of this work was under a quality sub-measure of the equal opportunities child care programme and saw us address quality at its most basic level. In those days, training and continuing professional development comprised supporting services to develop policies and procedures, good work practice, child protection and health and safety measures. The early childhood sector was starting from a low base at that time and the fundamentals had to be put in place first.

In recent years, this work has included the delivery of continual professional development and training on Aistear, the early childhood curriculum framework, supporting the implementation of Síolta quality standards and on-site professional development support, advice and guidance at local level. For city and county child care committees, the notion of quality standards goes far beyond early childhood practice standards alone. While they are a core element of our work, we take a much more multidimensional view of the fundamentals that must be in place before quality for children is realised. By way of example, we face an ever-increasing demand for financial advice and individualised plans for service sustainability. Often, we help to create detailed financial projections to determine whether a service is sustainable from year to year. Fluctuations in child enrolments in a given year have the potential to close a service in a very short space of time. Challenges regarding human resource management and supports and employer-employee conflict resolution are ever-present. High staff turnover in services, unsatisfactory working conditions and low pay collectively cause workforce stress, which can manifest as conflict situations. Child care committees undertake a mediation role in these cases as much as possible, and it is an extremely resource-intensive element of our work.

Corporate governance, compliance with regulation and effective management are noteworthy stress points for early childhood services. The company limited by guarantee model, while important for transparency and protection, places an onerous burden on community and voluntary child care services in particular. We are facing a crisis whereby it is becoming impossible to attract volunteers to participate on voluntary management committees in community child care services. This presents a huge threat to the continuance of community child care services in Ireland, and alternative models need to be considered and provided for with regard to administration funding.

All child care committees report high levels of engagement with parents and early childhood services in trying to provide support for children with special educational needs to participate in mainstream preschool education. A properly resourced framework of supports co-ordinated at local level through the child care committees is urgently required to provide equality of participation for all children. This area warrants immediate attention and is placing untold stress on parents and child care providers.

As highlighted, the fundamental strengths of the city and county child care committee structure include not only our local response and national reach but also our ability to be flexible in responding to policy change and development. We have responded to recent unplanned developments, such as the introduction of the learner fund and the introduction of the programme implementation platform, in an efficient and timely manner. The child care committees have a unique ability to monitor, collect and collate national data, making us a valuable support, implementation and delivery mechanism.

We are fully aware of the many competing priorities for funding. We hope we have provided a perspective that identifies particular pressure points which pose significant risk to the future of the early childhood sector and the crucial nature of localised and responsive supports in alleviating these. In trying to make savings, we caution against streamlining the city and county child care support structure to office-based administration duties only. The committees need to be sufficiently resourced to continue to act as a local one-stop shop for early childhood services and parents seeking support with child care funding schemes, quality development, HR, governance, financial sustainability and continuing professional development. This will enable us to respond to current and future challenges and support this fledgling sector in the next stage of its development. We thank committee members for their attention and welcome any questions they may have.