Ossian Smyth (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator for raising this important issue. Ensuring that high-quality early learning and childcare is affordable and accessible to all children, in particular children from vulnerable backgrounds, is a key priority for the Government. Data from the latest annual early years sector profile from last summer estimated that 14,088 children were enrolled in early learning and childcare in Galway. This represents an 8% increase from 13,047 in the previous year. The data also indicated that 50% of services had waiting lists and 50% had at least one vacant place. This year's annual early years sector profile will commence in May and will provide an updated picture of the capacity in Galway.

The Department of children funds 30 city and county childcare committees that provide support for families and providers with early learning and childcare matters. The Galway childcare committee is in a position to match children and families to services operating with vacant places and to engage proactively with services to explore possibilities for expansion, especially where there is unmet need. The Department understands the Galway childcare committee also provides a variety of supports to potential new services. This includes information on the requirements for setting up a new early learning and childcare or childminding service and these supports include local site visits for potential new providers with follow-up information on the requirements for planning, fire regulation, Tusla regulation and funding. The Department is continuing to develop its capacity to analyse supply and demand for early learning and childcare and in January 2024, it established a new supply management unit to identify areas of supply and demand mismatch and to develop appropriate policy responses to address those gaps. In addition to designing and implementing capital funding programmes, the new unit will develop the forward planning capacity of the Department as it continues to enhance the level of public management in the sector.

The national development plan, NDP, recognises early learning and childcare provision, along with housing, school and healthcare facilities, as an integral part of national infrastructure. A total of €250 million has been committed over the lifetime of the plan to 2030. In 2024, €18 million in capital funding has been set aside under the building blocks capacity grant scheme to increase the number of full- and part-time places, especially for those aged one to three years.This will be followed later in 2024 with a further scheme that will fund larger-scale extension projects also focused on increasing the number of places for age one to three. This scheme will be announced in the coming months and it will run over the course of 2024 and 2025. Therefore, as well as capital funding, core funding has demonstrated its effectiveness in supporting capacity growth in the sector since it was introduced first in 2022. The allocation for year 2 of the scheme provides for a 3% growth in capacity, which has materialised, and the allocation of year 3 of the scheme provides for further growth of another 3%.

In addition to physical infrastructure, one of the constraints on capacity is having sufficient staff employed to make places available. It has been recognised for many years that our low pay in the sector has been the main cause of staff recruitment and retention difficulties. As the State is not the employer, neither the Minister, Deputy O’Gorman nor the Department of children can set wage levels or determine the working conditions in the sector. However, there is now, through the independent joint labour committee, JLC, process, a formal mechanism established by which employer and employee representatives can negotiate minimum pay rates for different roles in the sector. In September of 2022, the first JLC-negotiated employment regulation order, ERO, for early years services came into force. The EROs, which are supported by core funding, provide new minimum hourly rates of pay for various roles in the sector. The JLC continues to meet. The Minister understands that it has recently submitted to the Labour Court new draft proposals to increase all current ERO minimum rates by 5% and also removing the requirements of three years work experience for graduate minimum pay rates, which will see further improvements and minimum rates of pay. This may assist in making available additional capacity in existing services.

Finally, it is noteworthy that the Government is moving shortly to regulate home-based provision of early learning and childcare. That will enable parents who are using child minders to avail of subsidies through the national childcare scheme.