Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I firmly believe, like the Deputy, that the rate of pay in the sector should reflect the value of the work that early-years educators and school-age childcare practitioners do for children, for families, for society and the economy.

The most recent available data, from the annual early years sector profile survey, indicates that the average hourly wage in the sector in 2021 was €12.60, which is below the living wage, with many staff working part time or on temporary contracts. This is not sustainable and is not acceptable. I am very conscious of the need for significant improvement in both pay and conditions across the sector.

As the Deputy will be aware, the State is not the employer, and my Department does not set wage levels or determine working conditions for staff in the sector. I am, however, doing all I can to address the issue. In December 2020, I set up a process to examine how we could regulate pay and conditions in the sector. This process culminated in the establishment of a joint labour committee, which began meeting in December 2021 and which, hopefully, will result in an employment regulation order. With that order, supported by the new core funding stream I announced in budget 2022, there is now a real prospect of improvement in pay rates through the joint labour committee. The scale of allocation under the new core funding is significant. It is €69 million in 2022, equivalent to more than €207 million in a full year, and it will enable employers to meet the new pay scales coming from an employment regulation order.

In December 2021, I published Nurturing Skills: The Workforce Plan for Early Learning and Care and School-Age Childcare, which includes commitments to deliver career pathways, promote careers in the sector, and strengthen supports for continuing professional development. The Government and myself are fully committed to ensuring that childcare professionals are properly paid. We have created the mechanism to deliver that through the joint labour committee. We have also delivered the funding to deliver it through the €69 million provided for in this year's budget.

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