Denise Mitchell (Dublin Bay North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak to this important Bill which has been a long time coming. It is welcome to see a Minister finally making serious efforts to deal with the crisis in the child care sector. Unfortunately, the neglect of the sector for such a long time and the failure of successive Governments to invest in it have left Ireland miles behind the rest of Europe when it comes to provision of quality child care services. We all know also that the Minister cannot fix the problem with a click of her fingers. There is serious work to be done to build capacity and standards and make quality child care services more accessible and affordable.

No family should have to pay the equivalent of a second mortgage for child care. That is why we need the State to lay a firm foundation for quality early years services. The studies are available. They show that for every €1 invested in child care, there is a sevenfold return to the State in the long term. I refer to the benefits that allow parents who are often highly skilled and experienced the option to return to the workforce, if they so wish.

Section 8 of the Bill deals with approved child care providers and the need for them to register with the Child and Family Agency. That, of course, is a sensible provision. However, I have concerns about people who care for children in their own home and their ability to access various schemes. As things stand, childminders must be caring for four or more children before they are obliged to register with Tusla. It is estimated that there are between 19,000 and 35,000 childminders across the country. However, in September 2016 there were only 119 registered with Tusla. Last October I asked for the number registered in 2017 and was told that the figure had dropped to just 118.

Many parents prefer to have their children cared for in childminding settings rather than in child care centres. We need to move forward on this issue in a way that is not only about assimilating childminders into centre-based care facilities. I recently met representatives of Childminding Ireland and found them very helpful. Good engagement between the Department of Children and Youth Affairs and groups like it could prove to be useful. I refer to suggesting approaches to encourage more childminders to register with Tusla. Recently the Minister said she had received a report from the childminding working group of the early years forum. I look forward to reading it and some of the proposals made.

Good engagement between the Department and groups such as Childminding Ireland can only be useful in suggesting approaches to encourage childminders to register with Tusla.

Section 14 makes provision for vulnerable children and notes the need for additional supports where there is an identified need for child care on the grounds of child development or child welfare, which includes higher rates, more hours, wider age limits and so on. That is welcome as some children have greater needs than others. I would like to hear more about this process. How will it be streamlined to enable it to work? Will the onus be placed be on parents or the various bodies? The reason I ask is to make sure we avoid a scenario where a child whose parents are less knowledgeable about the scheme will receive less support than others. We need to tease out this issue and put safeguards in place to make sure a child will not be disadvantaged in that sense.

Section 14 also designates the Child and Family Agency to authorise additional payments where a child is not receiving adequate care and protection. I consulted Barnardos on this issue and its staff believe the provision is not far-reaching enough and implies that there needs to be some parental failure for the protection to be provided. Perhaps we might consider strengthening it with a more positive declaration such as a child "in need of additional care or protection...".

Section 17 provides for parents and child care service providers to request reviews of decisions made by the scheme administrator. That is welcome, particularly as decisions will be made through an automated process and while it could greatly reduce time and workload, there will always be cases in which a person believes a mistake has been made. At least, he or she will have the option to seek a review or appeal the decision, which is positive.

I refer to the administrative burden for child care providers. I understand much of this is down to chasing parents with paperwork and so on. I hope the planned IT system will reduce the workload. However, I understand it is unlikely that this system will be up and running before summer 2019. Undoubtedly, there will be teething problems, as is natural in such a large transition. I hope all of this will not result in a dramatic increase, if only in the short term, in administration work for staff in the centres. If that happens, are safeguards in place to ensure the burden or cost will not land on the providers' doorstep? As there is a staff shortage, this could put much more pressure on them.

One concern I have about the Bill relates to the incoming European directive known as the general data protection regulation. It will come into force in May and strengthen data protection for citizens. While that is positive, I wonder whether it has been factored into the roll-out of the scheme? I hope it has, as under the new guidelines, additional information must be given to users on how their data will be used. I would like to flag that measure in advance.

One aspect on which I want to focus is the pay and conditions of staff. The Minister will say she does not directly employ the staff and that, therefore, she cannot dictate the level of wages. However, her Department subsidises the cost of child care and sets conditions and standards that must be met. We must, therefore, focus seriously on pay and conditions in the sector in the coming years. They cannot be an afterthought. If we want qualified staff and to have people who love working with children and a real interest in educating the youngest minds, we must pay them decent wages. Many of them prefer to mind children in their own home to working in centre-based child care services. This is resulting in a shortage of qualified staff in the centres and a balance needs to be struck in that regard. We seriously need to get a handle on this issue. The Bill will be great for parents and children, but the staff working in the sector will be left behind.

Overall, I broadly welcome the Bill which is extremely important. It represents a huge step forward in building a truly world-class child care system. We need to ensure at all times that the interests of children are at the core of everything we do. I look forward to the Bill being brought before the committee.

See this speech in context