Written answers

Tuesday, 22 October 2019

Department of Children and Youth Affairs

Childcare Services Staff

Photo of Kathleen FunchionKathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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78. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the measures included in the new national childcare scheme to address the poor pay and working conditions of those working in the childcare and early years sector. [43275/19]

Photo of Robert TroyRobert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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87. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the actions being taken to resolve issues in terms of the wage structure for childcare professionals; and her views on whether suitable qualified professionals within this field are grossly underpaid. [43269/19]

Photo of Katherine ZapponeKatherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 78 and 87 together.

The most recent data on current pay and conditions indicates that the average hourly pay in early learning and care and school-age childcare is now €12.55 (represents May 2019). Low pay and poor working conditions in the sector remain a serious concern and impact on the quality of provision to children through their effect on the recruitment and retention of qualified staff. The lack of consistency of care caused by high staff turnover impacts directly on quality, while low wages are a constraint on plans to upskill and professionalise the workforce. My support for improved pay and conditions for early learning and care professionals has been explicit, as their role is critical to supporting children’s development and delivering better outcomes for children and families.

Budget 2020 saw a 9% increase in investment in early learning and care and school age childcare. Additional investment of €54.5m will bring spending to €628m in 2020, a 138% increase in investment over five budgets. The very welcome level of investment needs to continue if we are to offer services that are of high quality, affordable and accessible. However, increased investment by itself will not ensure that staff wages and conditions will improve.

As the State is not the employer, my Department does not pay the wages of staff working in early learning and care settings, and I cannot set wage levels or determine working conditions for these staff.

I am, however, doing all that is in my power to improve wages and working conditions in the sector. I have repeatedly called for the sector to pursue a Sectoral Employment Order. My Department will readily co-operate with such a process when it is under way.

The National Childcare Scheme will launch in November 2020. This will represent a landmark moment for the early learning and care and school age childcare sector in this country. The new scheme will provide the necessary infrastructure, for the first time, to enable increased State investment be funnelled into the sector, not only targeted at low income families, but, as increased investment becomes available, to middle income families also. It will enable us move away from being one of the most expensive countries in the OECD for childcare.

The NCS is based on hourly subsidies for different age groups. These subsidies were calculated to reflect the cost of provision and the higher costs associated with certain quality measures, eg. the highest subsidy is paid for babies where the regulatory requirement is one staff member to 3 children. The subsidies can be increased to respond to higher costs that may be linked to, for example, better terms and conditions of staff. In this way, the sophistication of the design of the scheme will allow it respond, over time, to policy development to support improved pay and conditions.

Alongside increased funding for the National Childcare Scheme in Budget 2020, I secured increased funding for the sustainability fund for the sector. This will see funding to support sustainability rising from €1.7m to €2.2m per annum. The fund will assist high quality services which are experiencing financial difficulties to transition themselves to a sustainable footing, and will also assist with needs arising in the event that the Labour Court introduces a Sectoral Employment Order.

Other recent measures I have also taken to assist employers to improve the pay and conditions of their staff include: a 7% increase in ECCE capitation in 2018; higher capitation payments for graduates and Inclusion Coordinators; annual Programme Support Payments to recognise administrative demands; support for school-age childcare which will make it easier to offer full-time, full year employment contracts; and a pilot measure to fund participation in CPD.

I have set out my vision for the sector, and a roadmap to achieve it, in First 5, which contains a commitment to develop a Workforce Development Plan. This Plan, work on which began in recent months, will identify measures to ensure appropriate numbers of early learning and care and school-age childcare staff at all levels in the sector, to achieve a graduate-led workforce by 2028, to ensure an appropriate focus on both centre based and home based services and to raise the profile of careers in the sector. As part of this work, a series of public consultations will be carried out involving those working in the sector ( centre based and home based) and other stakeholders. Plans for the consultation process will be finalised in the coming weeks. First 5 also commits to develop a new funding model for the sector, which may open up new mechanisms to influence pay and conditions in the sector.

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