301. Deputy Alan Farrell asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the total number and category of staff currently employed in the early learning and care and school age childcare sector. [43763/24]

The State is not the employer and therefore does not have an official register of staff working in the Early Learning and Care and School Age Childcare sector.

However, Pobal carry out the Annual Early Years Sector Profile Survey on behalf of my Department. This comprehensive survey of all Early Learning and Care (ELC) and School-Age Childcare (SAC) settings in the country is the primary data source on this sector including staffing data. The latest figures from the survey provided below are taken from the Annual Sector Profile Survey for 2022/2023.

It should be noted that the data below is extrapolated based on the response rate by services to the survey to estimate the total number of staff, by category, in the sector.