Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Funchion for bringing forward this important motion. It is important and timely. It would also have been timely a year ago or two years ago, because this issue has been with us for so long. Many parents and families have struggled through the current system. I have found that when parents are able to pay for their childcare, they put their heads down and spend. They know that they will have two or three difficult years. Usually, it is the mother who ends up not being paid because her salary goes straight towards meeting childcare costs. When parents get through that difficult period, they look forward to finally having some money that they will be able to put into either their home or their family life. However, that is not the way we should be operating. We must start taking this issue seriously.

I reiterate my support for calls for a renewed commitment in the national early years strategy. Investment in childcare should be doubled by 2028 and a plan showing how this will be achieved should be published as part of budget 2022. We have been saying for far too long that the costs are too high, quality and pay for childcare staff is too low and Government spending on childcare is insufficient. This is a failing of not just this Government but of previous Governments as well. It is a systemic failure. Part of the problem is that successive Governments, essentially for the entire history of the State, have been primarily led by men. Men have never been and still are not impacted as much by childcare issues as women.

When one looks at the OECD, one finds that parents in Ireland are already paying the third highest proportion of their incomes to meet the costs of childcare. This is a direct result of the lack of spending over generations by successive Governments. For staff, the situation is also grim. Representatives of Early Childhood Ireland have stated that most early years educators are earning less than the living wage and can no longer afford to remain in the profession. Officials from SIPTU indicated at today's meeting of the Joint Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth that there will be a mass exodus of workers from the childcare sector unless significant new funding is allocated in the budget. It was also noted that Ireland's spending on early years services and education, at just 0.3% of GPD, falls far below the European average of 0.8% and the benchmark recommended by UNICEF of 1%.

There is also a recruitment and retention crisis in the sector. All parents putting their children into early years services or childcare understand the importance of having staff in the sector who are happy and secure in their jobs. Staff should also be able to build relationships with children and the children, in turn, should be able to get to know the staff, trust them and feel safe. The parents must also have trust as well. The system we have now is undermining children's ability to form such bonds with people who are very important in their lives. According to a recent survey, those running crèches and other childcare settings are reporting challenges in attracting new people to the sector. Some 71% said that it has been extremely difficult to recruit new staff in the past 12 months, with low pay cited as the biggest obstacle by 55% of respondents. Some 97% of managers and owner-managers, an incredibly high figure, are concerned that problems being experienced in recruiting and retaining staff will have a negative impact on service provision.

A survey of early childcare workers in Ireland carried out by Early Childhood Ireland found that eight in ten, or 80%, plan to leave the sector within a year if things stay as they are now. I do not know if such findings have been recorded in other sectors, but that is an incredibly high figure. It highlights that there is a real crisis in this sector. Slightly more than 40% of childcare workers are looking for work in other areas, with three quarters citing low pay as their reason for seeking to leave the sector. The situation is so bad that Early Childhood Ireland has warned that we could soon see childcare services collapse, just as we are set to reopen the economy, parents will be returning to work and wage supports will be winding down. My experience, and what I am hearing from people in my constituency of Wicklow, is that many childcare services are at maximum capacity. People are finding it difficult to find places for their children. It is particularly impacting on areas like Wicklow that are commuter counties with a major need for childcare provision.

Interestingly, the Department of Education monitors changes in population and projects future demand when it comes to building schools. My understanding, however, is that the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, however, does not. Pobal looks at things at a national level, but a specific county-by-county projection is not undertaken. That is a big gap and it could, potentially, be something that the childcare committees could take responsibility for. The Minister is reviewing their remit and this could be an area that those committees could examine. I say that because we see fluctuations in population, with some areas experiencing major population changes. We must be able to predict what is going to happen in that regard and to provide the requisite supports where they are needed and before they are needed as part of planning for the future.

Early Childhood Ireland and other advocacy groups have been calling for a five-year plan or budget to help the sector to adapt to a rising demand for places. This is a responsible approach. We must look at this from a long-term planning perspective.

A five-year plan or budget would provide the necessary security.

As we come out of Covid, there will be much more flexibility in how people work, which is welcome. It is very positive that the Government has been pushing for flexible work arrangements as parents return to work after the pandemic. It will have many benefits for family life and for communities if people have more time to spend at home with their families and in their communities. That will be a very positive change. Unfortunately, I do not think the flexibility we expect or hope for in our working arrangements will be translated into the flexibility that is needed in response in the childcare sector. What I find is that childcare providers are not in a position to provide flexible childcare, so families must take the full five days or they get nothing. They cannot pick or choose days or times. As we move to more remote working environments, that is the kind of flexibility we need. That would be beneficial for children and families. The Government must examine how it can create a more flexible childcare model that will support remote working opportunities.

Childcare providers are not inflexible by choice. It is an inflexibility imposed by the funding models that successive Governments have put in place. The childcare model must adapt to a post-Covid working structure. In Scandinavian countries, a provider is not punished if parents are in a position to reduce their child's hours or days, and the parents are not punished financially either. Here, parents are forced to pay a flat rate even if their hours are reduced. This rigid system was designed by previous Governments which did not see childcare as a public system, but as a strictly private domestic matter, the burden of which has mainly landed squarely on women. We are all aware of the impact this has on women entering and remaining in the workforce. Studies have shown the impact that the high cost of childcare and the inflexible system have on women in the workplace and their earning capacity.

The Minister and Deputy Funchion met the Association of Childhood Professionals at the protest outside Leinster House this morning. As Deputy Funchion says, it was very welcome to see him out there talking and listening to what was being said.

While the scheme has been positive for many families, it has impacted negatively on thousands of children from disadvantaged and marginalised families who were previously supported under targeted schemes that recognised that some families need additional supports. It also helped those wonderful children access safe, stimulated child-centred environments, including the hot meals and emotional supports that are all vital to a child's development when living with disadvantage.

When the schemes were amalgamated into the national childcare scheme, the supports available were substantially less. Unemployed parents are now entitled to far fewer hours, or no subsidised hours at all. Instead of the scheme being about the child and child-centred development, care and education, it has become a labour activation measure. It is not about the child at all, but about the Government's drive to get parents back to work. The balance has been lost in that regard. Early education cannot be about getting people out of social welfare, it must be about the child and supporting families around the needs of the child. The shift in Government childcare policy could widen the gap of inequality between children and push disadvantaged children into more vulnerable situations.

The Association of Childhood Professionals states that access to formative education and care should be a universal right, not conditional on compliance with a wider Government agenda of activating vulnerable parents into work. We must start to see access to childcare as a right in this country not as a private, domestic decision, a business or a labour-activation measure, but as a right built around the needs of the child.

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