Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Pobal Annual Early Years Sector Profile (AEYSP) provides a detailed overview of the Early Learning and Care (ELC) and School-Age Childcare (SAC) sector in Ireland, including the numbers of children in receipt of state subsidies, information on ELC and SAC fees, staff wages, qualifications and turnover.

In December 2023 the Department launched the Early Learning and Childcare Data website, replacing the traditional paper-based AEYSP report. The website provides a new and innovative way of displaying administrative data as well as survey data collected annually from over 4,400 early learning and childcare services across the country, supporting evidence-informed policy development and planning.

This new website will include a series of interactive dashboards that will be released by Pobal on behalf of the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (DCEDIY) over the coming weeks and months.

Released sequentially, the first iteration of this new dashboard will see the 2021/22 data published alongside the 2022/23 data. As the dashboard is still under development the ‘Service Overview’ section is currently available with more information including in relation to fees, being made available in the coming weeks.

In 2020/21, which provides the most recently published Pobal Annual Early Years Sector Profile data, the average weekly fee nationally per child for full day care was €186.84, for part-time was €110.92 and for sessional care was €74.20. It should be noted that this fee data is prior to the application of any subsidies.

The National Childcare Scheme (NCS) is a subsidy provided to help parents to meet the cost of childcare and allow children to access Early Learning and School Age Childcare. The subsidy is progressive and depends on a number of factors including the age of the child, the income of the household and the number of children in the family. Those with the lowest incomes receive the highest subsidies. The subsidy is subtracted from the fee and the balance (if the fee is not entirely offset) is then charged to the parents. These subsidies can be as much as €229.50 per week.

My Department has made a number of enhancements to the NCS in recent Budgets to substantially reduce the cost of childcare for parents availing of the NCS, these include:

The removal of the practice of deducting hours spent in pre-school or school from NCS awards, meaning that parents are able to use their full awarded subsidised NCS hours regardless of whether their children are in pre-school or school.

The increase in the upper age eligibility for the NCS universal subsidy from 3 years to all children under 15 years.

An increase in the NCS minimum subsidy from €0.50 to €1.40 per hour from January 2023. This will increase again to €2.14 from September 2024 on foot of Budget 24 measures.

In addition where a child is participating in ECCE for part of the day €64.50 will offset against any fee.

Working in tandem, Fee Management under Core Funding and NCS subsidies provides significant affordability benefits for parents in terms of reducing their early learning and childcare costs.

My Department does not hold individualised fee data for parents. These are local agreements between parents and early learning and childcare providers that reflect diverse needs and usage patterns, with fees varying within and across counties.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Deputy has requested the cost of increasing the National Childcare Scheme (NCS) subsidy by 1 cent. It is assumed the Deputy is referring to an increase of 1 cent to the NCS minimum (universal) subsidy.

The NCS minimum (universal) subsidy is available to all families with children under 15 years old. This subsidy is not means tested and provides €1.40 per hour towards the cost of a registered childcare place for a maximum of 45 hours per week. A 1 cent increase to the universal subsidy would result in a universal subsidy of €1.41 per hour.

The cost of this change was determined using the ESRI SWITCH model and applied to my Departments current cost estimates for the NCS for 2024. Using this method, the cost of this change was estimated at €1.37million.

This estimate comes with some important caveats. Firstly, the above costing is based on the NCS as it operates currently and it rates as time of this PQ being asked. As part of Budget 2024 I announced an increase to the NCS universal subsidy from €1.40 per hour to €2.14 and an extension of the NCS to a larger cohort of childminders from September 2024. As these are not yet implemented, the impact of these changes have not been factored into the above costing.

Finally, the costing is made on the basis of a static system; that is, the model assumes that the level of usage of eligible early learning and childcare remains static. Any changes to subsidies may create a change in behaviours in families, for example, women returning to workforce and using formal early learning and childcare for the first time.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I firmly believe the level of pay for early years educators and school-age childcare practitioners should reflect the value of their work for children, families, society and the economy.

The State is not the employer and therefore does not set the pay or conditions for employees in either early learning and care (ELC) or school-age childcare (SAC) services.

However, there is now, through the Joint Labour Committee (JLC) process, a formal mechanism established by which employer and employee representatives can negotiate minimum pay rates for ELC and SAC services, which are set down in Employment Regulation Orders (EROs). This is an independent process from the Department and neither I, nor my officials, have any role in the proceedings of the JLC and any associated negotiated minimum pay rates, the cost of which is borne by the employer.

Among other objectives, Core Funding supports the ability of service providers to meet the additional costs resulting from the EROs for Early Years Services, which came into effect in September 2022, as it provides increases in funding to early learning and childcare service providers to support improvements in staff wages, alongside a commitment to freeze parental fees.

On the basis of 2022 data supplied by Partner Services taking part in the Core Funding Scheme, the estimated cost to employers of raising the current ERO minimum pay rates by 1 cent per hour is approximately €350,000 per year, inclusive of employer-related costs (PRSI, etc).

In relation to this estimate, the following should also be noted:

• The cost estimates do not attempt to account for the potential cost implications for the wages of staff who are currently earning more than 1 cent per hour above current ERO minimum rates, therefore the 1 cent cost cannot be proportional extrapolated to estimate other additional costs e.g. a 2 cent cost would not be simply calculated by doubling the €350,000 1 cent cost.
• The cost estimates are based on staff who had an hourly wage recorded in service providers’ submissions for Core Funding, but the Core Funding data has been extrapolated to provide an estimate for all staff working in the sector.
• Current wage data was provided by service providers and may contain inaccuracies, but the has been adjusted upward on the assumption that all staff should earn at least the legally-binding minimum rates of pay specified in the EROs. The cost estimates are for the additional cost to employers of bringing staff from their current wage or the minimum pay rates set out in the EROs, whichever is higher, up to a pay rate of 1 cent more per hour for each of the minimum pay rates in the EROs.
• The cost estimates only relate to staff and managers covered by the current EROs, i.e. the estimates exclude the cost of ancillary staff.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The data available to DCEDIY indicates that early learning and childcare capacity is increasing. It is important to note the complexity and nuance involved in analysing capacity. At the most basic level, not all early learning and childcare places are the same – they may be offered for varying number of hours per day, weeks per year and for different age groups of children. Notwithstanding that complexity, a number of data sources strongly point to increasing supply of places including Pobal Annual Early Years Sector Profile survey data; Core Funding administrative data; and Tusla registration data. Pobal Sector Profile data provides insights into the number of enrolments and vacancies by age group from which capacity can be generated.

Each year Pobal compiles data from Early Learning and Care (ELC) and School Age Childcare (SAC) providers as part of the Early Years Sector Profile Survey. Data from the 2022/23 Annual Early Years Sector Profile estimated that there were 213,514 children enrolled in early learning and school age childcare nationally. This represents an 8% increase from 197,210 in the previous year. The data also indicates that 48% of services had a waiting list and 51% had at least one vacant place.

Vacancies in early learning and childcare can exist where there is space to include additional children in a room within the existing staff allocation. However, because of different care offerings operating across services, vacancies might be counted in different ways. For example some services will offer both morning and afternoon ECCE sessions and some might offer part-week attendance meaning that more than one child could avail of the same full time place.

Data for vacant places and capacity are not mutually exclusive across age groups (one vacancy could be available to more than one age group). Combining figures across age groups may therefore include duplicate data.

The estimated capacity by age group data for the 2022/23 programme year is as follows:

Age range*	Number of children enrolled	Number of vacant places	Capacity
1+ to 2 years (13-24 months)	13,340	796	14,136
2+ to 3 years (25-36 months)	24,640	2,526	27,166
3+ to 4 years (37-48 months)	54,567	7,022	61,589
4+ to 5 years (49-60 months) Non-school going	47,599	4,869	52,468
4+ to 5 years (49-60 months) School going	12,150	3,020	15,170
5+ to 6 years (61-72 months) Non-school going	6,298	1,233	7,532
5+ to 6 years (61-72 months) School going	15,849	3,670	19,519
6+ to 8 years (73-96 months)	18,098	3,449	21,546
8 years +	18,064	3,074	21,138

Notes: Published data are available at www.pobal.ie/childcare/capacity/. *Estimated data for 0-1 is not available as the accuracy of estimations could not be guaranteed due to sample size. Reported data from n=3,856 services indicate 2,220 children enrolled, 223 vacant places and a capacity for that age group of 2,443 within the services who responded to the survey.

Capacity provision is increasing in terms of number of services opening and the number of places and hours of provision that services are offering.

Analysis of Core Funding data indicates that the increased capacity is the type of capacity that is in highest demand relative to supply (i.e. places for younger children as well as school-age places).

Further, Government has committed to increasing the number of places available to children under 3 to 60,000 places by 2028. A range of initiatives are underway through the Department to progress the realisation of this target.