Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael)
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294. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the average annual earnings for early years educators, lead educators, deputy managers and managers, in tabular form; and the cost of increasing each by €0.50, €1, and €1.50. [43756/24]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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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.

Based on 2024 data supplied by Partner Services taking part in the Core Funding scheme and extrapolated to represent all services in the sector, the estimated earnings and cost of increasing current rates of pay by amounts proposed in the question are set out in the table below:

In relation to the estimates above, the following should be noted:

• 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.

• Cost estimates are based on the most recent data available to the Department, which was provided by service providers in May 2024, this data was provided prior to the new EROs for Early Years Services came into force on June 24th.

• Calculations are based on wage-data available at a point in time. Some services may have increased wages more recently, which would reduce the cost to services of moving from current wage-rates to the proposed wage rates in the question.

• The cost estimates only relate to staff and managers covered by the current EROs, i.e. the estimates exclude the cost of ancillary staff.

• The figure does not take into account the income currently received by those working in the sector who are self-employed and who derive their income from profits rather than wages.