Calls for radical new approach: Organisation has undergone huge changes over the years

TALLAGHT-based organisation Early Childhood Ireland is calling for a radical new approach to elevate early years and school-age care to the same status as primary education in Ireland.

The school-age care organisation hosts 11,619 children attending 290 settings in South Dublin and in its Budget 2025 submission, the leading membership and advocacy organisation has outlined ‘4 Asks for Children’ that has the potential to be transformative by recognising early childhood and school-age care as a public good that plays a vital role in Irish society.

“The biggest challenge facing our 954 member settings based in communities across Dublin is the recruitment and retention of staff,” according to Frances Byrne from Early Childhood Ireland.

“As a first step towards a publicly funded model, a date should be set by government to bring Early Years and school-age Age Care graduates within public sector pay and conditions in line with teachers.

“This will go a long way to resolving the staffing issues while helping to achieve consistent quality for children of all ages in all settings,” said Ms Byrne.

Early Childhood Ireland believes that every child in Ireland should have access to high quality Early Years and school-age Age Care as a basic right.

To ensure there are enough places for children in their own communities, a system of national and local two-year and five-year planning cycles must be initiated.

Additionally, the National Action Plan for Childminding 2021 – 2028 must be fully implemented.

Doing so “will improve child safeguarding, offer families the chance to access financial supports, and give childminders the formal recognition they deserve for their vital contribution,” Ms Byrne explained.

Early Childhood Ireland is urging the government to publish a five-year plan with a new investment target to ensure the implementation of overarching Early Years and School Age Care sector policies.

Despite reaching its initial target of €1 billion in 2023, the government has yet to produce a new funding goal and a plan which unifies the various commitments it has made in policy reports.

“Early Years and School Age Care has undergone huge and welcome change over the last number of years, and this needs to be effectively managed to fully reap the benefits,” Ms Byrne added.

Finally, the organisation argues that Ireland must be brought into line with other countries by ensuring adequately paid maternity and paternity leave.

“It is time for us to catch up and ensure that every child in Ireland has equitable access to high-quality Early Years and school-age Age Care provision,” Ms. Byrne concluded.

This week, we sat down with Frances to discuss this proposed approach.

Tell us a bit about this new approach!

What we’re doing is we’re proposing a new approach from the government to put Early Years and School Age Care on the same status as primary education in Ireland.

That’s part of our Budget 2025 submission. We’re suggesting for proposals that will help the current or future governments to do that.

It’d be quite radical, very new for the current government or the next government.

We would hope that the current government would start the ball rolling, so to speak, in Budget 2025, on October 1.

I understand you’re hoping this will benefit 54,000 Dublin children?

That’s right! And we estimate that there are around 11,600 in the South Dublin area who would benefit immediately.

But obviously if the government was to agree to the approach and put Early Years and School Age care on the same path as a primary education, that impacts children.

Tallaght and beyond! With future proof, Early Year and School Age provision for the future as well.

It is stated that the biggest challenge facing the 954 member settings would be the recruitment and retention of staff?

What we hear from our 219 member settings based in communities across South Dublin, particularly in Tallaght, and all over the country, is that the recruitment and retention of staff is absolutely the number one issue.

The first step we think the government should take, is to name a date, when the educators in our sector who are graduates and have the equivalent qualifications of teachers would be brought in under the net of public pay, just the same way that nurses and teachers and so on are.

Even naming a date would provide Early Childhood Ireland’s member settings in Tallaght, South Dublin, and beyond with great security to know a day is coming in the next couple of years when educators with degrees would have reached that status.

I can recruit now on that basis and have those medium to long-term conversations with staff.

That new way of treating them and having their public sector pay conditions align with teachers, would really resolve the staffing issues almost from day one.

I also understand Early Childhood Ireland is hoping that the National Action Plan for Child-Minding will be fully implemented?

There’s certainly government commitment to that; of course, these things take time.

But from the point of view of families around Tallaght and around the country, they have very little certainty at the moment; there isn’t good planning within the system.

Parents in other countries know that there is a place for their children if they want it, either in an Early Year school-age centre or a childminder’s home.

So in order for that to happen in Ireland, we’re calling for two year and five year planning cycles and for the National Action Plan for Children to be fully implemented so that families can have that security and child minders can feel they’re part of a valued Early Year School-Age care system, which recognizes their contributions to looking after young children.

The organisation is arguing that Ireland must be brought in line with other countries by ensuring adequately paid maternity and paternity leave?

That’s right! A few years ago, the European Commission recommended that governments within the European Union should commit to a payment of 66 percent of a parent or guardian’s income during the first year of a child’s life.

This is to enable them to stay at home during this period, as it’s absolutely crucial for a child’s brain development.

One of the reasons that people give, particularly dads for not taking a longer parental leave or an unpaid maternity leave is that they can’t afford to do it.

But in other countries it is seen as such a vital element of a child’s life that parents are supported.

We want to have a conversation in Ireland that would look at how we’re going to reach that 66 percent payment.

We are absolutely getting there in terms of the number of weeks that parents are now entitled to, paid and unpaid, in the first year of a child’s life.

That’s really welcome but we never want the arrival of a baby to be the trigger for a family going into poverty, because that impacts on children and those families as well.

We are calling for Ireland to be brought into line with other countries by ensuring that adequately paid maternity and paternity leave are part of the norm as they are in very many other countries.

These are the countries that we know have very good outcomes for children. We know that child poverty is lower in those countries.

We know that overall families feel far less stressed.

They have that certainty. We can comfortably take sharing between us in a two parent family.

We can currently take this time off even though we’re not going to be receiving 100 percent salary; we can still get by, we can still make it work.

That would make such a difference and an immediate medium and long-term difference to the lives of children.