Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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772. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if her attention has been drawn to the fact that the new regulations coming on stream in January regarding the use of community employment participants and their education levels in community and not-for-profit child care services will cause difficulties and challenges for the services to stay within the regulations; and her views on the matter. [37188/16]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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Under the Child Care Act 1991 (Early Years Services) Regulations 2016, registered providers of pre-school services will, from 31st December 2016, be required to ensure that each employee working directly with children attending the service holds at least a major award in Early Childhood Care and Education at Level 5 on the National Qualifications Framework or a qualification deemed by the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs to be equivalent.

Earlier this year my Department asked Childcare Committees Ireland (CCI) to lead on a national piece of work, with the 30 City and County Childcare Committees, to firstly ascertain whether there were services who would struggle financially when the new regulations came into effect and, secondly, all staff who were treated as part of the staff/child ratios would have to have a Level 5 qualification.

In working with services on this exercise, CCI was asked to explore how challenges could be resolved within existing resources. In any services where difficulties are being experienced, the CCCs are tasked with supporting services to assess the contributing factors and manage any change that may assist the service. This is done initially through the use of of business tools which focus on the finances and overheads of the service. For example, a fee calculation exercise looks at whether the fee being charged by the service is appropriate. There is also a staff ratio calculation applied to look at the numbers of children in the service, when they are booked in, and what ratio needs to be applied. For example, it may be that the service should take two fewer children in the morning, and two more in the afternoon in order to maximise the potential and run a viable service.

This methodology has been found to be very effective in many services across the country, and whilst sometimes unpopular decisions have had to be made in the short term, the medium and long term results should justify these decisions.

I hope that the support offered to the services can assist them in reforming their services in order to enable them to continue. I will of course be working extremely hard to seek further investment in childcare that will improve affordability for parents but also assist providers in running viable and high quality services. My Department has long-standing relationships with community/not-for-profit childcare providers, and recognises the important role that this sector has to play in childcare provision. I can certainly empathise with the challenges these services face and I continuously commend all early years services, particularly those operating on a not for profit basis, for the work they do.

The CCI review is due to be completed shortly, but preliminary results suggest that some services became over-reliant on unqualified CE participants to be part of core staff ratios over the years. Many services across the country began preparing for the regulations some time ago and have reduced or eliminated their reliance on CE participants as part of the ratios, but I understand that some remain.

In Budget 2017 provision was made for a fund of €1m to assist in the investigation of sustainability issues being faced by childcare providers, and to develop a policy to guide any future interventions. This initiative is at an early stage and officials will commence work in this regard in early 2017.

I believe that the work presently being undertaken by my Department and the CCI will influence policy over the coming months and years as we seek to establish a high quality childcare infrastructure in Ireland. You will also be aware that the Programme for Government contains a commitment to independently evaluate the cost of providing childcare. This report will give us solid evidence which will also inform future policy. Such evidence will be critical to ensuring that whilst we work to make high quality childcare more accessible and affordable for parents, we also invest sufficiently to enable services to operate to high standards and attract new staff and retain their existing valued staff.