Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move:

That Dáil Éireann:notes that:

— child care provision in Ireland encompasses a mixed model of provision with services delivered through the community, private and public sector; there are approximately 4,300 child care centres in Ireland; the number of staff employed in the child care sector in Ireland is around 21,000;

— there are 405,000 households in Ireland with children under 10 years of age, of which 266,000 households have children under five;

— the birth rate in Ireland is the highest in the EU and projections suggest growth in the number of children under five in the period to 2016;

— a wide diversity of child care arrangements are used in Ireland and 77% of pre-school children are cared for by parents or relatives;

— non-parental child care is very important for families with working parents and 68 per cent of couples with pre-school children where both are working full-time use such child care; and

— the annual cost of full-time child care for two children is €16,500 per year;

further notes that:

— current child care funding policy is absent of any supports for working families who do not avail of the community child care subvention scheme;

— the early childhood service infrastructure is under-utilised due to inconsistent access to child care funding schemes and non-regulation of the paid childminding sector;

— subsidised child care places are not equally accessible in all areas of the country; and

— the number of children of less than five years old will increase between 2011 and 2016 by around 4%;

agrees that:

— the link between child care and unemployment can be seen by noting that couples with a child dependent are less likely to exit the Live Register and are more likely to become long-term unemployed than other groups;

— support for child care for working families is likely to increase labour market participation;

— targeted child care support incentives linked with employment and focussed on lower income families offer significant economic benefits by incentivising those on the margin of employment;

— the current community child care subvention scheme reinforces the segregation of children from low income families in community child care services and undermines the principle of inclusion; and

— there is a lack of incentive for paid childminders to become tax compliant and register with the Child and Family Agency, CFA, due to the inaccessibility of child care funding schemes for home-based child care service providers;

accepts that:

— the cost of child care in Ireland suggests that average weekly expenditure on child care is a significant burden for families;

— the cost of child care in Ireland is the second most costly in the OECD in net terms as a percentage of wages;

— for sole parents the average cost of child care is estimated to be 45% of average wages; and

— the barriers to employment as a result of child care costs are particularly severe among lower income groups;

and calls on the Government to:

— introduce a new child care incentive to target specific groups where child care costs are a barrier to labour market participation;

— provide a direct payment to families related to the cost of child care, through the family income supplement scheme, FIS;

— widen the range of child care options available to low income working families supported under the FIS to include privately managed child care services including registered childminders;

— introduce a tax break for working families with children whose income is marginally above the FIS limits; and

— ensure that only expenditure on tax compliant child care providers registered with the CFA are eligible for any initiatives introduced.

I would like to share time with Deputies Ó Cuív, Keaveney and Browne.

I welcome the opportunity to propose this motion on early childhood care and education on behalf of my party. I understand this is the first time the current Dáil has had a comprehensive debate on this critical issue, which faces many families throughout the country. Fianna Fáil believes early childhood care and education is grounded in certain principles. We believe children should be valued and respected as young citizens and enjoy a childhood in which they are cherished and supported by their families and by the wider society. We believe investment in early childhood care and education is more than just a financial investment; it is a statement of commitment and respect for every child's right to education regardless of age, ability or background in Irish society. We believe the provision of high-quality services for children can bring significant benefits in areas like welfare development and educational attainment. We believe the early childhood sector should be valued as a core component of Ireland's employment, economic and enterprise infrastructure that will play an essential role in enabling people to return to work as the economy improves.

As my party's spokesperson for children, I wish to pursue policies and legislative changes which will ensure children get the best start in life to enable them to reach their full educational potential. I launched Fianna Fáil's discussion paper on early childhood care and education, Investing in Tomorrow, in September of last year. The main purpose of the development of this document was to promote an informed conversation between parents, stakeholders and policy makers on the further development of early childhood care and education in Ireland. I suggest it has been a successful undertaking, given that since the paper was published, I have spoken with many child care service providers, early childhood support organisations, academics, students and parents who have enriched my awareness of the challenges that face all stakeholders in Ireland's early childhood sector. The feedback on the content of the document from early childhood stakeholders has been positive. They like the practicality of the vision, objectives and recommendations proposed in the document. They believe that it puts forward a vision for early childhood care and education that is rational and responsive to the needs of parents and children.

Early childhood education is a fundamental component of Ireland's education system. The learning and development that takes place in early childhood provides an essential cornerstone for lifelong learning and educational attainment. Effective early childhood care and education plays a significant role in reducing educational underachievement, particularly for children who are faced with barriers to learning, and reduces or eliminates the need for later educational and social interventions. Child care provision in Ireland encompasses a mixed model of provision, with services being delivered through the community, private and public sectors. There are approximately 4,300 child care centres in Ireland. This is more than the combined number of primary and second level schools. Approximately 21,000 staff are employed in the child care sector in Ireland. By contrast, there are approximately 32,000 full-time equivalent teaching staff in our primary schools. Therefore, this sector deserves significant attention. It is estimated that approximately 50,000 children are looked after each day by approximately 19,000 childminders, most of whom are unregulated. At the end of 2011, just 257 childminders - or approximately 1% of the total - had been notified to the HSE and were therefore subject to the HSE inspection process. While Ireland's focus on early childhood care and education has undoubtedly improved and all developments are to be welcomed, we are less advanced than our European counterparts with regard to investment and policy implementation for children under the statutory school age.

My party is committed to progressing the regulation, quality and affordability of early childhood care and education as an important early intervention measure, which benefits not only young children and their parents but society and the economy as a whole. The previous decade witnessed many positive developments in early childhood care and education. There was a clear commitment to investing in children under various Fianna Fáil-led Administrations. There was very limited capacity in the child care sector before 2000, but between 2000 and 2010 the State, initially in partnership with the EU, invested €425 million in capital funding in the creation of child care places throughout Ireland. The equal opportunities child care programme, which ran between 2000 and 2007, created approximately 40,000 child care places. Its successor, the national child care investment programme, created 25,000 new child care places between 2006 and 2011. As a result of these two programmes, we now have an extensive early childhood physical infrastructure in place.

The introduction of the free preschool year in 2010 by the then Minster of State with responsibility for children, Barry Andrews, was a monumental advance for early childhood education in Ireland. The State invests approximately €175 million in the scheme every year. Approximately 95% of children participate in it. To be fair to the Minister, Deputy Fitzgerald, she has always acknowledged how positive this development was. The wording of the Government amendment to the motion before the House acknowledges that "the annual cost of child care to parents is reduced by over €2,370 when a child is participating in the free pre-school year" and mentions the findings from the Growing Up in Ireland study indicating that one in four parents who availed of the free pre-school year said they would not have been able to send their child to pre-school had it not been for the scheme and that this rose to more than one in three among more disadvantaged families. We must bear in mind that the scheme, which covers three and a half of hours of care a day for 38 weeks of the year, does not provide an answer for parents who are working full-time.

My party is committed to strengthening the fundamentals that have already been achieved. We want to ensure previous investment is not lost and existing infrastructure is protected, sustained and progressively improved. Our discussion paper on early childhood care and education, Investing in Tomorrow, focuses on five key areas in which service provision for preschool children in Ireland needs to be improved. We believe it is essential that standards of quality are improved to protect the welfare of children in early childhood services. It is imperative that all aspects of the sector are regulated, inspected and brought under the aegis of child protection legislation. It is unacceptable that large parts of the early childhood sector, including paid childminders and school age child care services, sit outside the regulatory system. The associated problem of the high cost of child care in Ireland is actively driving working parents to avail of lower cost unregulated child care services for their children. If real and tangible progress is to be made in improving standards of quality in early childhood care and education, Fianna Fáil recommends that there should be an increasing incremental investment of GDP over the next ten years in the key areas highlighted in the discussion paper.

It is important for the early childhood care workforce to be supported and professionalised in order to raise standards of quality. National and international research has established that the skills and qualifications of adults working with young children are critical factors in determining the quality of young children's early learning experiences. It is proposed that a professional early childhood training fund should take a whole-service approach to training and professional development. This approach should not be exclusive to training that takes place at FETAC levels 5 and 6. We are in favour of enabling the inclusion of children with special educational needs in early childhood services by supporting an inclusion agenda that ensures every child with a disability or special educational need is supported and enabled to access early education provision. Fianna Fáil has proposed the development of a national inclusion policy for the early childhood sector and the provision of a range of practical supports, including a second full free preschool year, to promote equality of opportunity for children with special needs.

The provision of accessible and affordable child care to working parents is a key consideration in enabling working parents on low incomes to access or remain in the workforce. One of our key recommendations is that the Government should commission a cost analysis of child care in Ireland. This analysis should focus on cost relief proposals for working parents, such as an increase in paid maternity leave as a means of alleviating child care costs in a child's first year and the development of a joint transferable paid parental leave plan between parents.

It was disappointing that budget 2014 continued on the path of the Government's previous budgets by cutting the supports to working parents. There was a reduction in child benefit in 2013 and this year we had the cut to maternity benefit. This cut came about only one week after the Minister, Deputy Fitzgerald, published the report of the expert advisory group on the early years strategy which recommended an extension to the maternity leave from six months to 12 months and which the Minister said she favoured.

We are, however, encouraged by our decision to highlight this area in the discussion document, as it is now the focus of an international economic report launched by the Minister before Christmas, commissioned by the Donegal County Childcare Committee and conducted by the Indecon International Economic Consultancy Group. The independent nationwide report, entitled "Supporting Working Families - Releasing a Brake on Economic Growth", examines potential policy options to address the child care obstacles that exist as a barrier to employment.

The Government needs to systemically address the cost of child care for working families through cost relief incentives for working parents and this is the main focus of this evening's Private Members' motion. According to the report, typical full-time child care costs range from €730 to €1,100 per month, and a two-child family would spend €16,500 annually on full-time child care. With 266,000 households with children under five years of age, the report illustrated that these costs are a barrier to the workforce. A significant proportion of parents, 26%, with children at nine months of age indicated that they were prevented from returning to work or training as a result of child care arrangements. These barriers to employment are particularly severe among lower income groups, with 56% from this group indicating that child care prevented them from looking for a job.

In support of this argument, it is worth considering the wider picture. The birth rate in Ireland is the highest in the EU and projections suggest growth in the number of children under five in the period to 2016. A wide diversity of child care arrangements are used in Ireland and 77% of preschool children are cared for by parents or relatives. Non-parental child care is very important for families with working parents and 68% of couples with preschool children where both are working full-time use such child care. The number of children of less than five years old will increase between 2011 and 2016 by approximately 4%.

I highlight the following drawbacks with current child care funding policy. Supports for working families who do not avail of the community child care subvention scheme are non-existent. The early childhood service infrastructure is underutilised due to inconsistent access to child care funding schemes and non-regulation of the paid childminding sector. The current CCSS reinforces segregation of children from low income families in community child care settings and undermines the principle of inclusion.

The Indecon report highlighted that the link between child care and unemployment can be seen by noting that couples with a child dependant are less likely to exit the live register and are more likely to become long-term unemployed than other groups. Support for child care for working families is likely to increase labour-market participation. Targeted child care support incentives linked with employment and focused on lower income families offer significant economic benefits by incentivising those on the margin of employment. There is a lack of incentive for paid childminders to become tax compliant and register with the Child and Family Agency due to the inaccessibility of child care funding schemes for home-based child care service providers.

In proposing this motion tonight, I call on the Government to expedite policy initiatives to reduce barriers to employment arising from child care costs with a particular focus on solutions for families most in need, bearing in mind the financial constraints. The Government now has at its disposal an evidence-based report with a full cost analysis on providing supports for working families. This can be achieved through adjustments to the family income supplement scheme for long-term unemployed and for current family income supplement recipients and a limited tax break for working families with incomes marginally above FIS payments.

I look forward to hearing contributions from all side of the House. I hope the Minister will take our motion in the spirit it is intended and will consider it favourably. I commend the motion to the House.

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