Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The exact information the Deputy is looking for is not currently available. The statistics on the average wages are compiled from the quarterly earnings, hour and employment costs surveys, EHECS, the periodic labour costs surveys and structure of earnings surveys conducted under EU regulations. While these surveys include breakdowns by sector and by occupation, the figures do not include a separate breakdown with regard to the child care sector. Accurate results at this level of detail cannot be provided from sample surveys.

In the EU statistical classification of economic activities in the European community, NACE, revision 2 system, child day care activities are classified as a sub-group of NACE code 88, social work activities without accommodation. Figures are available for the latter sector from the quarterly EHECS survey, showing an average earning per week of €465.12 in the fourth quarter of 2015. This is the average earning for all occupations working in the social work activities without accommodation sector.

Some comparative EU statistics are available for the social work activities sector from the 2012 EU labour costs survey. Annual earnings in the social work activities sector in Ireland were €32,896 in 2012, the fourth highest average earnings in the EU. The UK had a comparative figure of €28,583, while the EU average was €25,468.

Average hourly earnings for the social work activities sector are also available from the 2012 EU labour cost survey and show that Ireland earned the fourth highest average hourly earnings in the EU, with mean hourly earnings of €20.21. This compares to mean hourly earnings of €15.87 in the UK and a €15.76 average across the EU. Denmark recorded the highest average hourly earnings in this sector with a figure of €26.70.

There are no comparative earnings statistics available on child care workers for Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD, member countries. The Central Statistics Office, CSO, is currently preparing updated results on the structure of earnings for the years 2011 to 2014 based primarily on administrative rather than survey data. Broad sectoral and occupational statistics from this source will be published before the end of July and more detailed breakdowns will be subsequently available on request from the CSO, subject to the confidentiality rules.

While this will enable a more detailed structural table than before, the CSO does not expect that it will be possible to provide tables on earnings on specific detailed occupation codes within the child care worker sector. To identify earnings of child care workers, individual occupations would need to be coded with a four-digit level of international standard classification of occupations. That does not occur currently.

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