Katherine Zappone (Independent) | Oireachtas source

This is an extremely important debate. We need the Minister's leadership. We need significantly more ambitious change in this sector, so it is really great to have the time to discuss this and to hear the Minister's plans and the things she has already put in place. As the Minister knows, when early-years education is of high quality it benefits children from all socioeconomic classes, and also benefits society and the economy as a whole. Research shows that it leads to better educational outcomes and a more skilled workforce. It reduces poverty and can even lower crime rates, but only if the quality is high. Low-quality services can be unsafe for children.

We know the quality of early-years education here in Ireland is mixed. It can be unacceptably low, as was shown in the 2013 "Prime Time" investigation and documentary, "A Breach of Trust". At most child care centres across the country, though, the quality is good or excellent, particularly under what are often very restrictive circumstances. What we need to aim for is a sector which provides excellent-quality early-years education at all times for all children.

I have been involved in the sector for almost 30 years, since my partner, Dr. Ann Louise Gilligan, and I founded the Shanty creche in Jobstown in 1986 to provide child care services for women who took part in our education and training programmes up in the mountains. Since then we have established the Rainbow House educational child care centre, operating in An Cosán, and a network of educational child care facilities in the community of Tallaght. We have also led the establishment of a childhood development initiative in Tallaght west, and I have co-authored a manual on early-years education and care with the specific intent of raising quality in the delivery of this level of education, particularly through the integration of Síolta and Aistear, in the context of particular approaches to early-years education.

It is evident from my own experience and from listening to educators who work daily with young children that more resources need to be available for the sector. That is what all of us are saying, if we want to improve the quality of our early-years education services. It is not necessarily just a question of resources, but we do need more investment - it is as simple as that - because the resources cannot come from the parents alone, as other Senators have said. Our child care fees are among the highest in the world, despite the variable quality of our early-years services. The high fees exclude many women from returning to the workforce - we have also been saying that for years - and exclude their children from accessing early-years education. It is as unacceptable today as it was in previous years. High costs and parents' lack of resources reflect the lack of public investment by the State in early-years education, and others have already referred to our international comparisons.

We are not spending enough in terms of percentage of GDP. When our GDP goes up, we should spend more on early years education and care. I am aware the Minister believes that too. Therefore we are expecting great things from her in terms of increasing investment in early years education. We have some public funding schemes - the preschool year, the community child care subvention and the ETS scheme. They are positive and make the services more affordable for parents but they can only deliver quality if there is sufficient funding for the programmes. At the moment all of these schemes fail to provide funding for non-contact time which is to provide for continuing professional development for staff. It is important that they get a fundamental training but also ongoing training. Level 5 is great but it is only level 5 and we are talking about what is in effect the most important time of a child's life. We need support for non-contact time. It is essential if we want to provide quality in early years education. Of course I want and would welcome a second free preschool year but we need to ensure the quality of the scheme is in place and that the funding includes non-contact hours. Also, there is a huge need for more specialised training among early years educators. Other people spoke about special needs, and there have been hugely positive results in many different arenas, for example, speech and language training and the childhood development initiative in Tallaght West, as documented, which through early intervention and specialised speech and language training for educators, has significantly improved children's educational outcomes.

We need to listen to the professionals in the field. In regard to early years education and care, we need to invest in universal schemes and training that can deliver quality that is expected to benefit children. I was pleased to hear the Minister mention Early Start. It was terrific at the beginning, it has been improved over the years and the Department continues to support it.

The investment that we all talking about will not jeopardise the economic recovery. We cannot argue that we can only do it when we can afford it. In fact, it helps create that economic recovery by enabling women to return to work. It is really turning on its head the most popular argument that we will invest if we get the money but we need the money to invest to increase productivity and prosperity. Enabling women to return to work, will raise the standard of living for many families and contribute positively to the economy. I have spent many years making economic arguments, as has the Minister, for the investment in early years education and care. I hope she will continue to advocate and convince her colleagues of that.