Written answer
Early Childhood Care and Education
The Government acknowledged recruitment and retention challenges in early learning and childcare, largely linked to low pay, while noting rising staffing levels and falling turnover. It highlighted recent pay increases, increased Core Funding, proposed further wage rises, and the Nurturing Skills strategy and learner fund to support retention and professionalisation.
482. Deputy Cathy Bennett asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality her Departments plans to address recruitment and retention within the early years sector. [66308/26]
Comment on this
I believe the roles of the early years educators and school-age childcare practitioners are valuable ones, and they play an important part in supporting children's development, learning and care.
The current Annual Early Years Sector Profile data shows positive trends in sector staffing with the number of educators/practitioners working with children in the sector has increased by over 8% between 2024 and 2025 and has increased by over 33% since 2022 while the national average turnover rate has fallen by 1.3% to 24.5% in 2025.
I do acknowledge that many early learning and care and school-age childcare services report staffing challenges in relation to recruitment and retention. In a very competitive labour market and with low levels of unemployment, recruitment and retention is a challenge for all employers. In general, these challenges are caused not by insufficient supply of qualified personnel, but by turnover caused in general by low levels of pay.
Although the Government is the primary funder of the sector, it is not the employer and cannot directly set wages or conditions for any staff in the sector.
The Joint Labour Committee is the formal mechanism established by which employer and employee representatives can negotiate minimum pay rates, which are set down in Employment Regulation Orders, and is independent in its functions.
Pay and conditions are improving. Through the work of the Joint Labour Committee and successive Employment Regulation Orders, minimum pay rates have now risen three times in four years, delivering an average 15% increase in minimum rates of pay. The latest Employment Regulation Orders came into effect in October 2025 which saw an increase in minimum pay rates of, on average, 10% and is estimated to have increased pay for over 67% of staff in the sector.
Outcomes from the Joint Labour Committee process are supported by Government through Core Funding. For programme year 2026/2027, which commenced on September 1st, Core Funding has increased by 23% to €480 million. An additional €45 million has also been ringfenced from September to support services in meeting the potential costs of increasing rates of pay, contingent upon new Employment Regulation Orders being enacted. The Department has been made aware that the Joint Labour Committee has now negotiated and agreed new minimum rates proposals with an average increase of over 6% across all roles and will now proceed with the process of establishing EROs as set out in the Industrial Relations Act.
A longer-term workforce strategy for the sector is in place: "Nurturing Skills: The Workforce Plan for Early Learning and Care and School-Age Childcare, 2022-2028". Nurturing Skills aims to strengthen the ongoing process of professionalisation for those working in the sector. One of the five "pillars" of Nurturing Skills comprises commitments aimed at supporting recruitment, retention and diversity in the workforce, and it includes actions to raise the profile of careers in the sector.
The Department has recently developed a suite of careers materials to support recruitment and retention, which is available on central hub Nurturingskills.ie and have also been circulated to stakeholders across the sector including career guidance counsellors etc.
To further support staff retention and increase the number of degree level graduates in the sector, the Nurturing Skills Learner Fund was established to enable educators who continue to work within the sector to pursue Level 7 and 8 qualifications in support of the First 5 and subsequently Nurturing Skills objective of a 'graduate led' Early Learning and Care workforce.
Over 550 Early Years Educators have been offered financial support to upskill to Level 7 and Level 8 Early Learning and Care Qualifications for the Academic Year 2026/2027 beginning in Autumn 2026. Since its inception in 2024 Nurturing Skills Learner Fund have offered financial support to over 1250 Educators.
The Nurturing Skills Learner Fund demonstrates how Government is already delivering on our Programme for Government commitment to ‘remove barriers in education and training for early years educators to broaden access to the profession.