Childcare workers get wage hikes after ‘historic’ minimum pay order

New minimum pay rates for childcare workers, which will allow the largest public investment into the sector to begin next week, has been hailed as “historic” and a “significant start” by Minister for Children Roderic O’Gorman.

The first employment regulation order (ERO) for the early-years sector was signed off by Minister of State for employment and business, Damien English, on Wednesday. It will see entry rates set at a floor of €13 per hour, increasing for “room leaders” and managers to €15.50 per hour. This is seen as a first step in tackling decades of low pay, casualisation and repeated crises in staff retention in the sector.

An estimated 27,000 people, 98 per cent of them women, work in the childcare and early-education sectors.

Commencement of the ERO from next Thursday is key to the rollout of “core funding” – a €221 million investment this year in the sector to support wages, administrative work and support graduate employment.

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As a quid pro quo, services signing up for “core funding” agree to freeze fees to parents this year at last year’s rates. Mr O’Gorman urged services to sign up before the close on Friday evening.

The target is for this €221 million to increase to almost a €1 billion a year by 2028, and by then the workforce should be graduate-led, the Minister said.

He told The Irish Times early-years educators should be on pay rates similar to those received by primary schoolteachers, whose starting salaries are about €38,200 annually.

“I think the work childcare professionals do is as valuable as the work of teachers. It will take time for that to be achieved. I am looking to grow core funding each year to ensure there is a greater pot of money to support services in terms of the support they need, including to pay their staff better. Everyone was in agreement that a start had to be made and it’s a significant start,” Mr O’Gorman said.

The ERO was welcomed by Siptu, which represents 6,000 in the sector and was a key party to its negotiation at the Workplace Relations Commission along with employer groups.

Darragh O’Connor, head of organising with Siptu, said: “This pay deal, and future pay increases, means that early years professionals can plan to stay in their chosen profession in the long term.”

Early Childhood Ireland welcomed it as a “good day” for the sector but called for “greater clarity” on how core funding would increase between now and 2028, and what it would be spent on.

Childhood Services Ireland, which represents childcare employers in Ireland, said the order would “help improve staff retention and quality”, but warned the pay agreement would be “unsustainable” for many providers “without ambitious support” from the core funding scheme.

Ongoing concerns were reiterated by the Federation of Childcare Providers, which represents smaller services providing shorter, morning-only care under the early childhood care and education (ECCE) programme.

Core funding, which pays on the basis of the number of children in a service and the hours it is open, will be worth less to them. The federation’s spokeswoman, Elaine Dunne, called on Mr O’Gorman to increase the rates to her members under core funding, arguing many facilities would have to close otherwise.

The Minister, however, urged smaller providers to “trust us in the department”.

“We have brought core funding in. It’s a big increase in investment. That’s all about services and staff. We want to support all services, irrespective of whether they are a rural ECCE service or a large full-day provider. They are all valuable, They are all part of this system, we are looking to develop the system. This is just year one,” he said.