Dáil debates

Friday, 3 December 2021

Ceisteanna Eile - Other Questions

Childcare Services

10:00 am

Photo of Alan DillonAlan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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13. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the status of the National Action Plan for Childminding; the engagement that has taken place with representative bodies; the actions that are being put in place to ease the burden on parents; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [59466/21]

Photo of Jennifer Carroll MacNeillJennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister for taking the question relating to the status of the National Action Plan for Childminding 2021-2028, published in April of this year. This is a seven-year plan for giving better support to childminding in the home. Can I have an update on that please?

Photo of Roderic O'GormanRoderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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I thank the Deputy. The National Action Plan for Childminding 2021-2028 which I published in April, sets out a phased, incremental approach to extending supports and regulation to all non-relative childminders. It aims to improve access to high quality and affordable early learning and care and school-age childcare through childminding.

During phase 1 of the plan, which began recently and is expected to last two to three years, childminding-specific regulations will be developed that are proportionate and appropriate to childminders, as will childminder-specific training. In addition, primary legislation will be amended, and there will be further engagement and consultation with childminders.

The steering group for the plan met for the first time in September and again on 1 December. Its role is to drive, oversee and monitor implementation. The steering group will be supported by four advisory groups on stakeholder engagement; training and support; regulation and inspection; and funding and financial supports. The first two

advisory groups have already commenced their work.

In line with commitments in the national action plan, childminders are represented on the steering group and the advisory groups. In addition, Childminding Ireland which

represents childminders, is a member of these groups, and officials in my Department continue to work closely with Childminding Ireland, engaging on a regular basis.

Extensive consultation with parents, childminders and representative bodies took place throughout the development of the plan and continues in the implementation phase that has now begun. Ongoing consultation will be critical to effective implementation and work will begin shortly on developing a stakeholder engagement strategy. In addition, my Department provides funding to representative bodies and support information and engagement with childminders on the plan.

Childminders who are registered with Tusla can avail of the national childcare scheme, NCS, allowing parents to avail of subsidies. The plan aims to support a much wider cohort of childminders to register with Tusla and, therefore, to take part in the national childcare scheme. In this way, the plan will support parental choice in the type of provider of early learning and care and school-age childcare.

I am pleased that work in this important area is making progress. Childminding is a key part of the early years sector which up to quite recently was not getting the attention it deserved. The national action plan has set out clearly where we want to go and does so in a way that emphasises a collaborative and step-by-step approach. I will continue to support these developments in the coming years.

Photo of Jennifer Carroll MacNeillJennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The Minister is correct to identify the amount of work that has had to be done in the childcare sector over the past ten years, where, ten years ago the Government spent nearly nothing on this sector. We are now spending, I believe, €716 million, with a doubling of the early childhood care and education, ECCE, scheme of childcare places and a real focus, that has had to be there, on the regulatory standards around that sector. There were some very good childcare providers and childminders but very many that were not. We have seen that in quite distressing ways over the past ten years and a very significant amount of work has had to be done.

Coming directly to this issue with the Minister, Fine Gael did an extensive consultation piece with thousands of parents and childminders, as he is aware, in its Care of the Child document. The two big issues that emerged from this were, of course, cost, which we are aware of and flexibility. The Minister said himself this morning that listening to parents and to what they need enables the flexibility that can can be built in for them in any model. That may be in childcare facilities themselves or with childminders in order to be able to build choice and flexibility into a model, particularly recognising how people’s working lives have changed and their needs are now different.

Photo of Roderic O'GormanRoderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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I thank the Deputy. As she knows I have met with colleagues from her party on that comprehensive policy work that her party undertook. The issue of flexibility is of great importance and childminding is a very significantly flexible element of the early years sector. There is a very large number of people working in childminding. The parents who use those services cannot, for the most part, avail of the NCS, because the childminders are not registered with Tusla. We are beginning this process to bring a greater degree of regulation, recognising that childminders are not the same as centre-based carers. The regulation should be different but still has to be of a relevant standard. The educational qualifications are, equally, different but also have to be of a relevant standard. We need to encourage childminders not to see this as some sort of negative or imposition but to see it as a way of supporting them and the parents that they work with financially.

Photo of Jennifer Carroll MacNeillJennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I have a few practical questions on that. When the Minister is doing this, can he make it easier for parents to formally set childminders up as employees, or whatever mechanism is appropriate? People are not used to doing that and to creating businesses. It is relatively straightforward but is not easy. People want to be compliant and to ensure that everything is done correctly, so I ask that the Minister might remember that point.

There is also an ongoing question on the status of au pairsas people are not sure what that will mean for the future.

I will return to the point about flexibility and it is related to his other piece of work on gender equality. One of the points that arises - and I acknowledge that the Minister has done the work on the gender pay gap - and has a big impact potentially on flexibility and gender equality is the need to look at the culture of organisations. This is how parents of both genders can go in and request flexible working four-day weeks instead of what has happened traditionally, where women go in looking for a three-day week and a man stays at a five-day week, with all of the implications that has. The Minister now has a model through the gender pay gap reporting mechanism. Can we think about how we could extend that to look at how often men are looking for flexible working also - whether that can be documented and noted in annual reports or anything of that kind - to try to get a picture of what that might look like for the future?

10:10 am

Photo of Roderic O'GormanRoderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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I am aware that work is ongoing in the area of flexible working. Some of that is through my Department and some is through the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. I believe that a monitoring element would be really useful in the context of getting the take-up. We have seen a huge increase in the take-up of parental leave by both parents. Whereas originally and pre-pandemic it was primarily just mothers, now we are seeing a lot of fathers taking that leave, which is positive.

On childminding and the regularisation discussion, it is estimated that about 10% of the undocumented migrants who have the opportunity to be regularised through that scheme are actually working in the childcare sector. I believe that the vast majority of those are probably childminding. The work the Government is doing today on that will allow these people to regularise their situation and, hopefully in terms of the work we are doing on the childminding action plan, give them a stable career going forward.