Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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577. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if correspondence from a childcare provider (details supplied) will receive a response; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [41764/19]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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I am acutely aware of the difficulties that many early learning and care services report regarding the recruitment and retention of qualified staff, and the high rate of staff turnover in the sector. Accessing suitably qualified staff has been particularly difficult in very recent years and is due to both poor retention rates and the massive increase in investment that has seen a doubling of the number of childcare places and a subsequent major increase in demand for early learning and care practitioners.

The basic qualification requirement to work in the sector is a qualification in early childhood care and education at Level 5 on the National Framework of Qualifications. When this requirement was introduced, unqualified staff who planned to retire in the coming years were given the opportunity to sign a 'grandfather' declaration. These declarations remain valid until September 2021.

A Level 6 qualification is only a requirement for room leaders delivering the ECCE programme. The Pobal 2017/18 survey indicated that 65% of those working in the sector in mid-2018 then had a relevant qualification at Level 6 or above, indicating that there were enough staff qualified at this level to meet requirements. However, I acknowledge the challenge many providers are reporting in retaining staff and recruiting new staff.

The Department of Education and Skills has responsibility for the training and supply of the early learning and care workforce and I understand from that Department that the numbers being trained is sufficient to meet entry requirements. In Pobal’s Early Years Sector Profile Report for 2017/2018, the staff turnover rate stood at 24.7%, which, despite a 3% improvement on the previous year, was at a very high level. I understand the 2018 / 2019 report will show a further small improvement. The primary issue that needs to be resolved is one of retention.

I believe that the key to addressing this challenge is undoubtedly improving wages and working conditions. Over the last 5 budgets, the level of public investment in early learning and care and school-age childcare has increased be an unprecedented 138%. We need to keep increasing the level of public investment if we are to secure services that are of high quality, affordable and accessible. However, increased investment by itself will not ensure that staff wages and conditions will improve.

I am doing all that is in my power to improve wages and working conditions in the sector. As well as increased investment generally, I have specifically targeted funding directly to providers, for example, a 7% increase in ECCE capitation in September 2017, €19.4m annually of Programme Support Payments to providers to recognise their administration duties, Higher Capitation payments to ECCE services employing graduates. Also, I have repeatedly called for the sector to pursue a Sectoral Employment Order, which offers a viable mechanism to establish appropriate wage-levels. My Department will readily co-operate with such a process when it is under way.

In First 5, the Whole of Government Strategy I launched with the Taoiseach last November, I made a commitment to develop a new funding model that will leverage additional investment for certain criteria, for example, better pay, or full implementation of the curriculum. First 5also includes a commitment to develop a Workforce Development Plan for the sector. My Department began work on the Workforce Development Plan earlier this year, and an initial public consultation will take place in the coming weeks.