Public funding of childcare and early education should be quadrupled, says industry body

The organisation representing the majority of early childhood care and education providers told politicians on Thursday that the sector needs the Government to commit to a five-year-plan culminating in a fourfold increase in funding if Ireland is really to address the issue of long-term underfunding in the sector.

A week after members of the Federation of Early Childhood Providers closed the streets outside to protest what they regard as shortcomings in the current system, the substantially larger Early Childhood Ireland took a more low-key approach to putting its case in advance of the budget with politicians invited to come and discuss issues in the sector with providers at an event in Buswell’s hotel.

Kathleen Funchion, Dara Calleary and David Staunton were among the many TDs to make appearances and as official and providers made their case for the big increase in funding, a multiyear plan and a dramatic simplification of the many schemes under which current Government supports are provided.

The organisation’s Director of Policy, Frances Byrne, acknowledges there are some providers experiencing genuine difficulties but believes for the majority of its more than 4,000 members the key issues are staffing and a desire for a sense of certainty that extends beyond whatever funding is announced in the Budget next week for a year’s time.

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The two, she says are linked, with the fact that premiums offered to attract more graduates into the sector, are still low and decided on an annual basis, hindering the ability of providers to sell the sector as having the potential to offer long-term careers.

The solution, somewhat inevitably, is money and quite a lot of it with Early Childhood Ireland arguing that the current Government funding of around €1 billion should be raised to roughly €4 billion by 2029 in order to provide a publicly funded Early Years and School Age Care system in Ireland that would benefit parents, staff and providers.

“I think it’s fair to say that reaching that €1 billion target in advance of schedule was really brilliant,” she says. “And I kind of get why there’s a level of frustration (within the Department of Children), because to be very frank, we were in this building, in Buswell’s last year, for the budget announcement and my jaw dropped at the €1 billion. That was enormous progress.

“But at some point, some Government has to stand up and say: ‘We’ve underinvested for decades, and now we are going to make this a priority.’ The Minister has made it clear he wants to put more money into the sector and if anything, we’re supporting him. But everybody in the room, everybody in the Cabinet, everybody knows it’s not Early Childhood Ireland propaganda that we’re underinvesting.”

The €4 billion figure, she argues, would bring the State’s spend up to the 1 per cent of GDP commonly seen in some other European countries while allowing the sector to address its ongoing staffing crisis.

“We hear from between 100 and 250 members a week, we gather our own data very carefully, our own metrics and overwhelmingly staffing is the number one issue. Trying to get educators to come in, trying to get them to stay because the wages are still very low and they’re very low because of underinvestment,” she says while criticising the current Joint Labour Committee system for establishing minimum levels of pay as inappropriate if the sector is serious about making serious long-term progress on the issue.

That, though, is linked to the organisation’s desire to see a multiannual plan. “We really believe that a five-year-plan would help because the department could set out a vision, name an amount and spell out how they’re going to get there. I think an awful lot of the negativity that we see at the moment comes from a place of fear and worry because of the uncertainty.”