Dáil debates
Wednesday, 16 April 2014
Topical Issue Debate
Community Employment Schemes Funding
1:35 pm
Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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I appreciate the opportunity to raise this issue to ensure sufficient financial resources will be in place so people on community employment schemes in County Laois who are currently working in child care can undertake training to improve their qualifications so as to continue working in this area. Recently I was contacted by a child care facility in County Laois, Jelly Tots in Abbeyleix. It is a crèche and play-school and it has been an outstanding facility for a number of years. It is a community child care facility, not a privately run facility. Those who have been working there for a number of years have been community employment scheme participants. In total, approximately nine people were involved working in Jelly Tots as part of the community employment scheme.
Recently, all child care-related community employment in County Laois has been centralised under Laois Partnership. That is fine and it happened on 3 March. I have no issue with the centralisation and with having the various community employment schemes all under the one central scheme in County Laois. This works well and there are approximately 30 people involved. I am sure the centralised scheme is very good and has a clear focus. It is not the case that the supervisor is dealing with tidy towns and then with community child care facilities, as can happen. The facility in question is dedicated to child care. It is a good idea to have a clear focus. The scheme is well run.
The difficulty is that the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Frances Fitzgerald, introduced new legislation to ensure everybody working in child care must have a FETAC qualification at level 5 to work in child care in 2015. This is the nub of the issue. The staff in question have been working in child care but now are required to have a qualification at FETAC level 5. This, too, is welcome. I appreciate it and it is a good, positive step because we want to ensure the best people are looking after our children. This ties in with the children's referendum we held some time ago with a view to putting greater emphasis on children. It is important that people working in child care have all the knowledge and training required. However, it has now arisen in County Laois that those staff currently working in this area who do not have the FETAC level 5 qualification must be trained to that level. Some in Laois already have that qualification. While Pobal has a learner fund, it excludes community employment participants because Pobal is publicly funded and there is a training budget in the community employment scheme. If the latter were used along with the funding of Pobal, this would be regarded as double funding. Therefore, the staff are not eligible to avail themselves of the Pobal learner fund, which presents a particular difficulty.
The community employment scheme authorities, which have very limited training funds, want to use that funding to train the staff with level 4 qualifications up to level 5. In the Abbeyleix scheme, perhaps four of the nine staff need the additional FETAC training. I am not sure of the figures pertaining to the scheme right across the county under Laois Partnership.
Early Childhood Ireland has no course in Laois. The point is that while it is running the courses around the country, it did not run one in County Laois. I asked locals whether they had tried to get onto a scheme in a neighbouring county and they stated they tried Thurles and Kildare only to find there were no spaces available. We have good trainers in County Laois to carry out the training required. I understand, although I have not had it verified, that the Laois County Childcare Committee has applied to be a trainer to provide the facility but I believe no definite word has been given on this. It could serve as one possibility of allowing the training to happen in County Laois.
Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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I apologise on behalf of the Minister, who is unable to respond to this matter today. She has asked me to thank Deputy Fleming for raising it. She will examine it closely again on foot of the Deputy's remarks.
In response to the Deputy's question, the Department of Social Protection is consolidating and improving the provision of training and work experience for community employment, CE, participants, particularly those who wish to pursue a career in child care. For CE participants who work directly with children, a dedicated programme comprising formal learning and supervised work experience is now a mandatory part of participation, as the Deputy stated. This formal learning programme will lead to a FETAC level 5 major award in early childhood care and education. This is the minimum entry requirement for a child care practitioner. The programme will last two years, during which a major award will be earned. One year of work practice will lead to the programme lasting for a maximum of three years overall. This programme involves defined standards of achievement, a career progression path and a structure for CE participants in early years services. These changes are designed to provide a more tailored and valuable support to the provision of community child care and to achieve greater coherence between participation on CE schemes and the jobs market.
The new CE child care scheme started in Laois on 3 March 2014 under the CE sponsorship of Laois Community and Enterprise Development Company Limited. The child care CE scheme has been allocated 50 CE places. Thirty-three CE places are allocated for the direct provision of child care and 17 places are allocated for child care support.
An additional training budget to facilitate the completion of the full major award at level 5 in child care will be made available. The child care CE scheme has also been allocated an additional CE supervisor to mentor and support the child care workers through the major award. The interviews for the new child care supervisor will take place before the end of April.
It seems, from the information I have, that an additional training budget to facilitate the completion of the full major award at level 5 will be made available. I hope that resolves the issue.
1:45 pm
Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister of State. I have raised Topical Issues on a number of occasions and this is one of the first positive responses I have been able to achieve.
Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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Mine too.
Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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This is good news for the people in County Laois who are involved under the Laois Community and Enterprise Development Company Limited, to give it its full formal title, although I use the local title I am used to dealing with. I had said there are approximately 30 places on the scheme, and I am pleased the Minister of State has confirmed there will now be 50 CE places. That is quite an undertaking and makes it quite a large scheme. It is good that it should be centralised in the county and I want to acknowledge everything the Minister of State has said so far, which tallies exactly with the information I have been given. There are 33 places for the direct provision of child care and 17 places are allocated for child care support. The most important sentence from the Minister of State, which I will repeat, is: "An additional training budget to facilitate the completion of the full major award at level 5 in child care will be made available." That is good news. If the news was not good, I was going to ask whether there were any other mechanisms in the Department through some other schemes that could in some way be dovetailed to work with it, but in view of that good response, I am happy that this is no longer necessary.
It was unfortunate that one or two people had commenced this when the funding ran out. So long as the funding and the training programme are in place and people are able to get their qualifications, I do not have a fixation as to whether this training is delivered through the Laois Community and Enterprise Development Company, through the Laois County Childcare Committee or through the organisation Early Childhood Ireland, as it is not my affair to interfere with that, no more than it is the Minister of State's. The essence of all of this is to make sure we have suitably qualified people in the area of child care from 2015. I appreciate the good news that funding will be made available to complete this training.
Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy. It is clear there is a responsibility on the Department to provide training. If we are asking people to move from level 4 to level 5, there is some obligation on funders to provide support to people as they go about that journey. I can confirm that an additional training budget to facilitate the completion to level 5 in child care will be made available. It is crucially important also that a new CE supervisor to mentor and support the child care workers through this award will be in place before the end of April. These are two important pieces of news the Deputy can take back to his constituents.