Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State, although I am disappointed that the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs could not be here this morning. This week is very significant for child care workers and early years educators throughout Ireland. It is the week in which they go in their thousands to sign on for the dole for the summer. Under the early childhood education and care programme, early years educators are employed on fixed-term contracts of 38 weeks per year, under which they typically work part time for 15 hours per week. Once the 38 weeks are over, educators go on the dole for the summer, after which period they may or may not receive another 38-week contract. There are no employment benefits such as pension, maternity pay or sick pay.

What a telling indictment of the current child care model this is. We cannot even provide full-time positions to the thousands of highly qualified child care professionals who raise our children. The precarious nature of the child care sector is policy driven as a lot of the providers are dependent on State funding which, frankly, is inadequate. Community not-for-profit providers were traditionally funded by the community child care subvention scheme, which provided for full-time, permanent positions with much higher rates of pay. This latter model shows that Government policy can be used in a positive way to drive employment practices.

I am afraid the facts about current pay and conditions in this sector speak for themselves. The average rate of pay is €10.27 per hour. To put that in context, one can get better pay making sandwiches in Centra. What does this tell us about the value we put on child care? Research carried out by Early Childhood Ireland at the end of March 2017 demonstrated the depth of the staffing crisis, as 86% of facilities expressed concern that problems recruiting staff will impact on the viability of their service. Moreover, 36% of those who tried to recruit staff in the last 12 months were unable to find anyone suitable. Of those who have had staff leave in the last 12 months, nearly 60% cited as a reason that working in the sector was not financially viable. It is no wonder, therefore, that the sector had a staff turnover rate of 28.4% in the last 12 months.

I ask the Minister of State to imagine the impact this must have on the quality and continuity of care for the children. Child care professionals are voting with their feet and leaving the sector. In many cases, they are also leaving the country. These statistics show what we already know, namely, that the sector is in crisis. To be fair, I acknowledge that the crisis is not of the Minister, Deputy Zappone's making. She has inherited the, situation which is the result of decades of Government neglect. However, it is fair to ask what steps she is taking to address the situation in terms of pay and conditions for workers in the sector.

SIPTU's Big Start campaign gives the Minister a roadmap to a better future of regulated early years education in which standards are underpinned by a sectoral employment order. I raised the issue of child care 12 months ago and nothing has changed since then. In 12 months' time, will we still have thousands of child care workers signing on for the dole? Will they still be working for one euro less than a living wage? It is not good enough and I hope the Minister of State will have something positive and concrete to say.