Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Harkin and her staff for bringing forward this very important motion on the challenges facing the childcare and nursing home sectors. I support this motion and its calls on the Government to put in place specific policies to ensure that, in the childcare and nursing home sectors, there is an equitable local and regional spread of affordable quality services. I am going to concentrate on childcare in my contribution but it is across the board, as the Minister of State said earlier.

Unfortunately, I have recently been made aware of numerous early childhood education and childcare services that are closing their doors for good in June. This includes full-day, part-time and ECCE sessional-only services. It has also been brought to my attention that there are services on the Tusla register that have been closed for up to two years now. Tusla has been notified, so these should have been removed at the time. However, somehow they are still included as operational because they have not been removed from this register. Can we rely on or trust the figures we are being given with regard to closed services?

Our childcare sector is in crisis. Childcare providers are struggling with a severe lack of funding and a lack of qualified staff available. Social Justice Ireland has reported that one out of every two childcare workers earned below the living wage rate for 2021, despite the increasing demands on childcare workers to improve their skills and qualifications. Many childcare services are experiencing issues with degrees and qualifications now not being recognised and are subsequently losing out on funding. This will have dire consequences for the viability of childcare services going forward.

Childcare providers also need to be able to hire SNAs, who have some kind of experience, to work with children with additional needs. Childcare providers cannot be inclusive and ensure safe levels of staff at the same time. When children go to primary school, they are provided with an SNA and this should also be the case for childcare facilities.

Childcare providers have repeatedly communicated their needs and it is on the Government now to address those needs. The Government needs to increase the rate of core funding and end the fee freeze immediately for those signed up to core funding, especially those who have been in an historical fee freeze since 2017. The Government needs to increase the rate of ECCE funding from €69 to €100, restore the title of educator to the professional workforce, end the command-and-control system, exempt early years services from commercial rates, streamline inspection processes and reduce excessive administration across all areas.

The additional request for a second set of accounts, following the introduction of the core funding chart of accounts financial reporting requirement, is proving very costly due to the time required and the accountancy costs, pushing many childcare providers over the brink. To my knowledge, no other partly Department-funded business is asked for this and it creates a huge financial and administrative burden on childcare providers. As has already been said, they are already doing accounts for Revenue so that should suffice.

Future funding should allow for increases in EROs for staff each year and take into consideration additional CPD, staff cover due to ratios, increased sick leave and pension auto-enrolment, as well as non-contact time required for administrative tasks. NCS subsidies for parents should have the same start and end date for all children, in line with Government scheme programmes. The Department also needs to allow time for administrative input into the NCS children's childcare identifier code key and to pay retrospectively up to a few weeks, as it is not always possible to get parental approval for this on time. The NCS subsidy amount per hour should remain the same for every child and should not vary at different times of the year or due to the child's date of birth or other factors.

Parental subsidy increases via the NCS announced in the budget last year should also have been implemented from January and parents should not have to wait until September to see this increase, especially given that many are severely affected by the cost-of-living crisis.

It is also extremely unfair that the Department would scale back the NCS parent subsidy if there are irregularities in attendance, with the service being penalised. A booked space is a space and provider overheads do not diminish that. All children of any age who are attending an early years’ service should have access to support for their required hours and not just ECCE-applicable children. The access and inclusion model for children who require support needs to be increased again in line with staff employment regulation orders, ERO, and wages. A huge issue is also that childcare providers are tied to the ever-evolving terms and conditions of the Department scheme's draft contracts. This leads to a lack of transparency and consultation in what is supposed to be a two-way partnership.

The Government needs to start listening to the childcare providers and workers who have been trying to communicate these issues for a long time. If we want a fair and equitable society, we need to ensure that our citizens have access to essential services. These should preferably be State-funded services, but at the very least they should be accessible and affordable services offered by providers and workers who are properly funded and supported.

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