Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)

I move amendment No. 2:

To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following:

"welcomes the significant prioritisation by the Government of measures designed to: — reduce out of pocket costs of early learning and childcare for families;

— better align the supply of State-subsidised early learning and childcare with demand; and

— increase the pay and improve the working conditions of early years educators and school-age childcare practitioners, as well as develop career pathways and promote careers in the sector, in line with Nurturing Skills, the Workforce Plan (2021-2028); acknowledges the unprecedented growth in State funding in the sector, which has increased by 142 per cent since 2020 to stand at €1.37 billion this year;

acknowledges and welcomes the major achievements of the funding model that provide a solid foundation from which this Government can build, in particular: — the National Childcare Scheme (NCS), which is providing subsidies - universal, income-assessed and sponsored - to record numbers of children this year, with an allocation of €530 million in 2025;

— the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme, which enjoys uptake rates in excess of 96 per cent and has removed barriers to accessing pre-school education, with data from a recent review showing that more than 40 per cent of families would not have been able to send their child to pre-school without this programme;

— the award-winning Access and Inclusion Model (AIM), that is supporting more than 9,000 children with a disability to access the ECCE programme this year, with AIM now expanded beyond the ECCE programme, where ECCE children are now benefitting from AIM support outside the ECCE programme hours, both in term and out;

— Equal Start, the 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, with 770 services designated as priority settings in receipt of targeted supports this year;

— Core Funding, with an allocation of €331 million in the third programme year towards operating costs (pay and non-pay) of providers to support;

— the introduction of a new fee management system, which in years 1 and 2 meant no increase in fees since September 2021 and in year 3 means the continuation of the fee freeze for a majority of providers, as well as a fee increase assessment process and a maximum fee cap;

— the introduction of targeted measures for small services, including a flat rate of €5,000 for services registered on the Tusla Early Years Register as sessional only and a minimum Base Rate allocation of €14,000 for centre-based services; and

— the introduction of two Employment Regulation Orders for the Early Years Services Sector, which came into effect in September 2022 and June 2024 providing minimum hourly rates of pay for early years educators and school-age childcare practitioners, increasing the wages of an estimated 73 per cent and 53 per cent of those working in the sector; acknowledges that the allocation for the fourth year of this scheme, which will exceed €390 million, contingent on updated Employment Regulation Orders, will bring further investment into the sector;

acknowledges and welcomes the major progress in implementation of the National Action Plan for Childminding (2021-2028), with the commencement of the Child Care Act 1991 (Early Years Services) (Childminding Services) Regulations 2024 and relevant sections of the Child Care (Amendment) Act 2024 making it possible for childminders to start applying to Tusla to go through the registration process and once registered by Tusla to apply to take part in the NCS;

further acknowledges and welcomes the latest data from a range of sources that shows capacity in the early learning and childcare sector is increasing in terms of the number of places and hours of provision that services are offering, the number of places opening, the number of staff in the early learning and childcare workforce and the number of parents supported through the various schemes and the numbers of children benefitting, with: — data from the Early Years Sector Profile Survey showing that, between 2021/22 and 2023/24, the estimated number of enrolments in services rose by 19 per cent from 197,185 to 234,597;

— core funding application data showing that between Year 1 (from September 2022-August 2023) and Year 3 (from September 2023-August 2024) of the scheme, annual place hours increased by 15 per cent;

— data from Tusla on service closures and new service registrations showing a net increase of 226 in the overall number of services in 2024 and a six-year low in the number of service closures;

— data from the Early Years Sector Profile Survey showing that, between 2021/22 and 2022/23, the estimated number of staff in the early learning and childcare workforce rose by 8 per cent from 34,357 to 37,060; and

— data from the NCS showing that since May 2022, there has been a 136 per cent increase in the number of providers offering the Scheme and a 330 per cent increase in the numbers of children benefitting from the Scheme; also acknowledges that there continues to be evidence of some families having difficulty finding appropriate places at a cost that is affordable and that despite progress in recent years owing to intervention by the State, the sector remains a low-paid one; and

welcomes: — the commitment by Government to a reduction in fees paid by parents to €200 per month over its lifetime;

— the ringfenced allocation of €45 million to increase the pay of early years educators and school-age childcare practitioners this year through updated Employment Regulation Orders, with a commitment by Government for further progress in this area;

— the transformation of the Supply Management Unit into a Forward Planning and Delivery Unit, with important work underway in that Unit to develop a forward planning model and explore options to introduce public provision to operate alongside private and community providers where there are shortfalls in capacity;

— the commitment to develop an Action Plan to 'build an affordable, high-quality, accessible early education and care system with State-led facilities adding capacity', with the scope of the Action Plan, the design of a comprehensive stakeholder consultation process to underpin it and the principles that should guide the delivery of this work well advanced; and

— while noting that further developments and investment are required, Dáil Éireann recognises that there are many positive and progressive elements to the current early learning and childcare sector and acknowledges the pathway for improving access, affordability and quality is set out in the new Programme for Government.".

I welcome the opportunity to debate this important issue. While there is agreement that further efforts are needed, as demonstrated by the extensive commitments in the new programme for Government, the substantial progress made in recent years in this area has delivered real, substantive and sustained change and that should be recognised.

Backed by record increases in investment over the term of the previous Government, early learning and childcare in Ireland has been transformed. Many more children are participating in early learning and childcare, parents are paying less, and staff have seen increases in pay. The substantial efforts made in 2024 alone are outlined in the recently published First 5 annual implementation report, the annual progress reports on nurturing skills and the national action plan on childminding, which I published earlier today.

I absolutely recognise that we need to go further to support parents, educators, practitioners and providers across the early learning and childcare sector, with the focus always on ensuring positive experiences for children. As committed to in the programme for Government, I will be developing an action plan to set out the important next steps for the next stage of transformation of this essential service that build on the very positive foundations we now have in place.

The pathway to developing this sector was set out in Partnership for the Public Good, the report of the expert group that was agreed by the Government in 2021. The key theme of that report was the need to strengthen State involvement in the sector through greater levels of public management accompanied by greater levels of public funding. Significant reforms have been delivered since then and they provide the solid foundation for the next stage of development by Government.

The core funding scheme was introduced in 2022. Now in its third year, €331 million will be invested this year into the sector through this scheme to deliver improved pay for educators and practitioners, to control parental fees and to support providers. This scheme has been the key to starting to unlock some of the long-standing challenges in the sector.

The joint labour committee process has seen the agreement of two rounds of employment regulation orders establishing new minimum rates of pay for staff at different grades, supported by core funding. This has resulted in pay increases for a large cohort of staff in the sector. I recognise, however, that we need to build on this to ensure that qualified staff are attracted and retained in the sector. To this end, €45 million is being made available this year to support the agreement on a third round of employment regulations orders by the joint labour committee. This funding is contingent on updated orders being in place. It is €45 million for the purpose of pay and it should be used in full for that purpose. I said that mindful of the independence of the joint labour committee and I respect that independence completely.

The access and inclusion model has already been extended to children in the preschool scheme outside of preschool hours, both in term and out of term. This is making an enormous difference to the lives of children with a disability. Further extensions of the access and inclusion model for younger children and schoolgoing children are now being considered.

Equal Start has been introduced to support inclusion of children from disadvantaged backgrounds in early learning and childcare. Services with a priority designation under Equal Start are now in receipt of additional supports. The national childcare scheme has increased subsidy rates paid to parents which, along with fee controls under core funding and other reforms to the scheme, are delivering much greater affordability for parents. Indeed, recent data from the OECD show that low-income households in Ireland are now paying at or below the OECD average for early learning and childcare for the first time but out-of-pocket costs for some parents remain much too high, and I know that.

The expansion of regulations to allow for access to the subsidy scheme by families who use registered childminders was also achieved late last year, fulfilling commitments in the national action plan for childminding, 2021 to 2028. I hope to see childminder registration numbers gather pace in this three-year transition period until September 2027 before registration becomes mandatory. During the transition period, my Department is providing supports at local level through the city and county childcare committees.

In the Partnership for the Public Good report, the expert group report also made a number of recommendations with regard to the role of the State in the sector to enable greater public management. It called for the State to play a larger role in capacity planning and developing the sector to align with need, as well as examining the introduction of public provision to complement private provision. These are areas where some progress has been made but I understand we need to step up these efforts.

The programme for Government builds on the initiatives in recent years since the publication of Partnership for the Public Good and provides the impetus now to go much further and to deliver on that mandate. Last year, a supply management unit was established in the Department. The programme for Government articulates an intention that the unit be resourced and transformed into a forward planning and delivery unit to identify areas of need, forecast demand and deliver public supply within the early learning and childcare sector where required.

This unit is currently developing a forward planning model to assist in identifying where unmet need or demand and areas of low supply exist. This model will be central to the Department's plans to achieve the policy goals set out in the programme for Government to build an affordable, high-quality, accessible early learning and childcare system, with State-led facilities adding capacity.

Capital investment is being provided this year for the expansion of provision by existing providers, including investment in the purchase or construction of new buildings by community providers. This investment is integral to ensuring greater availability of places and recognition of the role played by private providers in enhancing the early learning and childcare offering available. The programme for Government also commits for the first time to providing capital investment to build or purchase State-owned facilities, to create additional capacity in areas where unmet need exists.

State ownership of early learning and childcare facilities is a very substantial and significant shift in the policy direction that the Department has pursued heretofore. It offers the potential for much greater scope to influence the nature and volume of provision available and to ensure better alignment with estimated demand, with public provision operating alongside the established private and community elements of the sector.

We will design and develop this work in collaboration with the Department of Education and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage as key partners. School buildings already provide the premises for approximately 15% of early learning and childcare services and the programme for Government points to ways in which these arrangements can be further supported.

The new Planning and Development Act provides a framework for the review and revision of planning guidelines to ensure that new early learning and childcare facilities that are brought on stream align with future needs. Importantly, we are committing to progressively reduce the cost of early learning and childcare to €200 per child over the lifetime of the Government. Officials are examining this ambitious commitment and exploring approaches to most effectively achieve this objective.

We are very much in the active planning stage for what I anticipate will be an exciting number of years in this sector. Core to this planning is engagement with stakeholders across the sector. This will build on the extensive stakeholder engagement activities that have taken place in recent years, and that includes an in-depth meeting with representatives from the Together for Public campaign and attendance at its launch, which has been referred to in the motion. In addition, a number of dates have been offered for a meeting between the National Women’s Council of Ireland and senior officials of the Department.

The programme for Government outlines the intention to undertake a broad consultation ahead of publishing a detailed action plan to build an affordable, high-quality, accessible early learning and childcare system with State-led facilities adding capacity. The action plan will take into account the diverse views of stakeholders in this field and connect the wide range of actions and commitments already in place with a broad research and evidence base to describe the additional initiatives required to achieve the ambitions of this programme for Government. The action plan will enhance parental choice through ongoing support for public, private and community provision, as well as childminders. I look forward to updating the Dáil as the action plan is developed.

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