Mr. Darragh O'Connor:

We are just over the first year of the pay deal. It is great that for the first time, educators and managers have a forum. Educators and managers sit on our side of the table across from employers and we hammer out the deal. There is an agency there and a control over it and I talked about some of the advances we have made, particularly for the lowest-paid workers. We have to appreciate that those rates of pay are legally binding. That is a key bit of it because that gives the confidence to the State to say that if it puts this money in for pay, it goes into the pockets of workers and not off into other directions. That is a key thing. Without that legally-binding element, we will not win the argument over pay. The State will not give us the money to be able to sort that out. Everyone around the table here has talked about why that is so important. For this coming year, a part of the challenge we have is around the fee freeze we have been talking about because some services are at a disadvantage compared with others. We know some services are doing pretty well. There are a limited number, we can see their accounts and can see that they are profitable. We also know they are paying quite high rates of €14 or €15 an hour for an early years educator, so above the living wage. However, we also know that some services are really struggling and that is a drag on what we are able to do with the pay talks. What the State needs to do is understand which services are which, who is struggling and who is not, and give money to the people who are struggling. The question is not whether we should raise the fee freeze; it is how we address that issue. Politically, it will be difficult to increase fees but there is more than one way to skin a cat if those services can be supported. If a service is struggling, its fees are low or there are other cost pressures there and they can get supplementary funding when it comes to pay, that frees up and gives us the ability to move the lower-paid workers up to where the average worker is or even a bit higher then as well. You go onto jobs.ieor indeed.ieand €14 and €15 an hour is the going rate in a lot of places around the country. That is far off the rate of €13.65 that we have been able to agree this time around and it is because the drag of the services that are struggling. That and the fee freeze are the obstacles we have to get over. However we solve it, that will allow us to move on in respect of pay. It is year after year. We cannot be going back to parents saying the State promised to reduce fees but we are going to have to bump them up. The State needs to step up and take responsibility. If it wants to reduce fees and wants good quality, it will have to put the money on the table to deliver this. It is up to us in the pay talks and the sector to make sure that euro for euro, this money delivers in increased pay. If it is there for pay, it has to deliver for pay. If it is there to support providers, it needs to support providers. That is why the ring-fenced funding for pay is so key.