Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome this motion as an opportunity to debate the important issue of early learning and childcare. It is clear from the debate so far that we all recognise the importance of early learning and childcare for children and their families as well as for society and the wider economy.

In opposing the Deputies' motion and putting forward a countermotion, the Government’s objective is not to claim there are no challenges in the sector but rather to demonstrate that the Government has set out a pathway to address affordability, accessibility, quality and availability and has made significant progress in this regard.

The Minister, Deputy O’Gorman, in his opening speech focused on affordability, accessibility and quality. I will focus on availability and supporting children with additional needs in early years. Government acknowledges there is further work to do to support the type and volume of early learning and childcare services that will best match the needs of parents and children, but there is now in place a very solid foundation of funding and data from which to plan. All of our data point to an expanding sector. Data from the early years sector profile survey show us that, between 2021-22 and 2022-23, the estimated number of enrolments in services rose by 8%, from 197,210 to 213,154, and the estimated number of staff in the early learning and childcare workforce rose by 8%, from 34,357 to 37,060. Core funding application data show us that between year 1, from September 2022 to August 2023, and year 2, from September 2023 to August 2024, of the scheme, annual place hours increased by 7.4%.

Data from Tusla on service closures and new service registrations show a net increase of 129 in the overall number of services in 2023 and a five-year low in the number of net preschool service closures, with preschool service closures falling by 18% since the introduction of core funding. Data from the national childcare service show us that, since 2022, there has been a 22% increase in the number of providers offering the scheme, a 97% increase in the numbers of children benefiting from the scheme, and a 57% increase in the number of sponsored children. Notwithstanding this, Government acknowledges there is evidence that demand for places is increasing and, for certain cohorts and in certain areas, outstripping supply.

Regarding children with disabilities in the early years sector, AIM is a child-centred model involving both universal and targeted supports and designed to be responsive to the needs of each child in the context of their preschool setting. It empowers service providers to deliver an inclusive preschool experience, ensuring every eligible child can fully participate in the ECCE programme and reap the benefits of early learning and care. Since AIM was first launched in 2016, more than 27,000 children have received targeted AIM supports in more than 4,400 settings nationally and many more children have benefited from its universal supports. AIM has also been recognised nationally and globally and has won awards for excellence in practice and inclusion.

An independent evaluation of AIM, commissioned by this Department and undertaken by the University of Derby, was published in January 2024. It involved almost 2,000 stakeholders - parents, educators, providers and representative groups. The evaluation’s findings were overwhelmingly positive and there was unanimous stakeholder support to extend AIM beyond the ECCE programme. In line with these findings and in addition to the support AIM provides to the more than 7,000 children with a disability each year to access the ECCE programme, from this month there is the phased extension of targeted AIM supports to these children beyond time spent in the ECCE programme, in term and out of term. In addition to this, an action plan has been developed to respond to areas for improvement, including increasing awareness of AIM, further building the capacity and confidence of educators and providers in supporting children with autism and streamlining the application process for equipment, appliances and minor alterations.

Equal Start is the new funding model and set of universal and targeted measures to support access to, and participation in, early learning and childcare for children and their families who experience disadvantage. The roll-out of Equal Start began this month, with more than 750 services designated as priority settings anticipated to receive targeted supports in the first year.

Government is progressing a range of actions to ensure the supply of early learning and childcare is aligned with demand, with work in this area led by a new supply management unit established earlier this year in the Department. This unit is actively progressing the development of a planning model. A metric for analysing different types of early learning and childcare has been developed, and the availability of these places is now being geo-mapped against the child population at each year of age, given the significantly different early learning and childcare requirements of children at different stages. As well as clarifying the status quo position regarding supply and demand at a local area level, this model will allow us to estimate future demand in line with population change.

That detailed, specific and area-focused analysis will also guide the development of a supply policy, which is also being developed by the supply management unit. As part of this policy development, the unit is examining whether some element of public provision should be introduced alongside private provision, as recommended by the expert group on the new funding model, Partnership for the Public Good.

The work already under way between the supply management unit in the Department and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage to review the 2001 planning guidelines will also be a critical input to the supply policy. An interdepartmental working group has been convened to examine the 2001 planning guidelines to determine their application and suitability in the context of current policy and legislative provisions and based on projected demand. As part of this review, the development and dissemination of a survey of planning authorities on the application of the 2001 planning guidelines will be undertaken. In addition, and in keeping with the long tradition of capital investment, 40% of all places have been funded by the State under the combination of capital investment under the equal opportunities childcare programme 2000-2006 and the national childcare investment programme 2006-2013.

These funded the creation of 65,000 places, while the Department’s annual capital programme since 2015 has seen the creation of more than 27,000 new places. This Government has allocated €89 million under the National Development Plan 2023-2026, with the overwhelming majority of this earmarked for supply under the Building Blocks capital programme. Under this programme, the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, recently announced a €25 million capital scheme to support existing services to expand their provision for those aged from one to three years through building large-scale extensions to existing premises and to support community services to purchase or construct new premises. I anticipate there will be significant interest in this scheme and look forward to thousands more early learning and childcare places being delivered in the coming years through the scheme.

Moreover, as Deputies will be aware, the Government recently approved the publication of the Child Care (Amendment) Act 2024 and childminding-specific regulations as committed to in the National Action Plan for Childminding 2021-2028 will be introduced at the end of this month. This will enable parents using childminders to access national childcare scheme subsidies. This is another major development to expand access to publicly subsidised early learning and childcare provision, as acknowledged in the motion put forward by Sinn Féin.

The procedures on the use of school property and school sports facilities outside school hours recently published by my colleague will support schools and other facilities to make their premises available for early learning and childcare, among other uses.

I do not wish to claim there are no challenges in the early learning and childcare sector but, rather, to demonstrate the Government has set out a pathway to address challenges and has made very significant progress in a short time in this regard. There is international recognition of this progress. The European Commission has recently endorsed the approach of the Government and welcomed the substantial progress that has been made. Notwithstanding this progress, there is recognition we need to continue to address affordability, accessibility, quality and availability. In this context, there remains an ambitious programme of work under way that will allow us to build on the very significant reforms to date.

Sitting through this entire debate, one would be forgetful to think nothing has happened in the last four years. In four years, childcare fees have reduced by 50%. Looking at the Sinn Féin policy, what is it going to do with the sponsorship programme? If the party is setting a price of €10 per day, where is it going to look after the most vulnerable?

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