Aisling Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)
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702. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if her Department will consider the establishment of a route to registration with the teaching council for persons who specifically work in early education; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [58282/25]

Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael)
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The Teaching Council registers teachers under the Teaching Council Act 2001-2015 and in line with the Teaching Council Registration Regulations, 2025 www.teachingcouncil.ie/assets/uploads/2025/10/SI.2025.0482_TC_Registration_Regulations.pdf. As set out in the Schedule of the Regulations, the Council registers teachers under five routes of registration: Route 1 - Primary, Route 2 - Post-primary, Route 3 - Further Education, Route 4 - Other and Route 5 - Student Teacher. The qualification requirements for each route are set down in the Schedule.

Under the Teaching Council Acts 2001-2015 the Teaching Council is the body with the statutory authority and responsibility for the regulation of the teaching profession in Ireland including the registration of teachers in the State. The Department has no role in the registration of individual teachers.

Early Learning and Care (ELC) settings are regulated by the Childcare Act 1991 (Early Years Services) Regulations 2016. Staff working in ELC settings are called Early Years (EY) Educators and the regulations require that staff have a qualification of a minimum of Level 5 on the NFQ. There is no statutory body (akin to the Teaching Council) for the ELC sector, nor a register of EY Educators, but these are things that the sector is working towards as a longer-term goal - as set out in Nurturing Skills, the Workforce Plan for ELC and School-Age Childcare 2022-2028.

This is a sector that is growing and developing its structures, and there are some other elements of what the Teaching Council does that the sector is more actively working on. This Department has a role in the space of Initial Professional Education (IPE) and CPD. In the last number of years there has been a considerable focus on improving the quality of courses for EY Educators at Levels 5-8. This has resulted in the design of the Professional Award Type Descriptors (PATD) by QQI for courses at levels 5&6, and the Professional Award Criteria and Guidelines (PACG) published by DE and DCEDIY for levels 7&8. To support this work the Qualifications Advisory Board was constituted by both the Minister for Education and M/CEDIY on a non-statutory basis in 2019 and it approves courses at levels 7&8 as meeting the standards of the PACG.

The Teaching Council has no role in regulating the staff in the early years sector.