Nessa Cosgrove (Labour)

I welcome the Sinn Féin motion and I thank the party for bringing it forward. We all know very well the concerns about the cost of childcare and, as a parent of three children, I know they are very real. Childcare is an expensive business, and it should be. After all, we have highly qualified professional staff caring for our children, who are the most precious members of our society. This is not a service that can be delivered on the cheap and yet the system has been designed to deliver just that, a quality system on the cheap. It is delivered in the community sector through voluntary committees responsible for implementing increasingly complex and confusing schemes. In the private sector, it is done through the unpaid labour of small independent providers.

While the large corporate chains are making vast profits, small providers continue to struggle to make funding streams work for them. It is not like this crisis in childcare happened overnight. It has been like a runaway train for successive Fianna Fáil- and Fine Gael-led governments. The implementation of the third employment regulation order for the early years sector has steadily increased the basic pay per hour from €13 in 2022 to €15 this September. This was hard fought for and hard won. It was won by trade unions and workers on the ground. During this same period, the minimum wage has risen from €10.50 to €13.50 today and it will be increasing to €14.50 in January 2026. Obviously, I completely welcome the increase in the minimum wage, but how will a basic difference of 85 cent per hour attract people to choose a career in a highly rewarding but challenging sector? The reality is that there remains a recruitment and retention crisis in the sector and the crisis is deepening.

The prebudget submission from SIPTU identified a 25% turnover rate. High turnover rates-----