Mr. Darragh O'Connor:

The pay and conditions are horrendous. People are living in poverty and struggling with the basics. They are leaving the sector. We have asked all these people to train up and skill up, and they are delivering a professional service, and they have no choice but to leave their profession. That is what is happening. It is not universal. There is a big spectrum. There are people who are earning the minimum wage and then there are people who are paid a decent rate. If you want good quality early years, you are going to have pay the staff. That is it. The next question is who pays. Is it the State or parents? We could double the fees for parents and give everybody proper pay and pensions and all the rest, but politically that is not feasible. Parents do not have the money to do that. Once you accept the State has a role in supporting good quality and affordability, the question is how to get the money in there and make sure State investment delivers on policy goals. Core funding addresses that in a real way but previously, when money was going into the system it might reduce fees or increase pay but there was no guarantee. It is about the State taking command and using those levers to achieve the policy objectives. Hopefully there will be a pay deal in place from September this year, which is a start. It is certainly not the finish but it would lift a lot of people up from where they are at the moment.

Regarding the international comparisons, when early years is delivered by the free market we see very similar situations, with high fees for parents and low pay. In quite a lot of Europe, where there is a mix of public and private provision, it is treated much more like teaching, with comparable rates of pay. If we are asking people to do a level 8 course and come out of DCU or Limerick with all their qualifications but one person is teaching eight-year-olds and another is caring for and educating four-year-olds, there will be a massive gap in their lived experience when it comes to pay and conditions. There should not be. They have an equal impact on the lives of children, which can be transformative.