The agenda this morning is a discussion on State-provided childcare places and early childcare matters. We are joined by: Ms Kathryn O'Mahony, chief executive officer, and Mr. Stuart Buchanan, head of advocacy and impact, from the YMCA; Ms Maria Watters, financial administrator, and Ms Siobhán Duffy, manager, from Lios na nÓg Playgroup CLG; Ms Theresa Murphy and Ms Mary Murphy, directors of Spraoi and Sonas Early Learning Centres; and Ms Karen Clince, chief executive officer of Tigers Childcare. The witnesses are all very welcome. Representatives from An Scoil Beag and Cocoon Childcare have both sent apologies and advised that, unfortunately, they are not in a position to appear before the committee this morning. The purpose of this meeting is to hear views of stakeholders about issues facing the early childcare sector.

Before we begin, I have a few housekeeping matters to go through. Our members who are on Microsoft Teams are all aware that the chat function should only be used to make the team on site aware of any technical issues or urgent matters and should not be used to make general comments. I also remind members of the constitutional requirement that members must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex to participate in public meetings. I will not permit members to participate where they are not adhering to this constitutional requirement. Therefore, any member who attempts to participate from outside the precincts will be asked to leave the meeting. In this regard, I ask any members participating via Microsoft Teams, prior to making their contribution to the meeting, to confirm that they are on the grounds of the Leinster House campus.

In advance of inviting our witnesses to deliver their opening statements, I want to advise them of the following about parliamentary privilege. Witnesses and members are protected by absolute privilege in respect of the presentation they make to the committee today. This means they have an absolute defence against any defamation action for anything they say at the meeting. However, they are expected not to abuse this privilege. It is my duty as Cathaoirleach to ensure that this privilege is not abused. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks, and it is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

Witnesses will be allocated three minutes for their opening statements. That will be followed by a question-and-answer session with our members, who will have seven minutes for both questions and answers.

I thank the Chair, Deputies and Senators for the opportunity to address the committee on State-provided childcare and issues facing the early childcare sector. YMCA Dublin is a registered charity which believes that everyone should have the opportunity to belong to healthy, confident, secure and connected communities. We have delivered youth, family and community services across Dublin since 1849, and provided community-based childcare since 1988. We operate with a clear mission to expand service provision to under-served communities, and improve outcomes for children, young people and their families by working collaboratively with a range of partner agencies. YMCA community hubs provide fit-for-purpose childcare facilities and high-quality community spaces, either through one front door on a single site or separately within a local cluster. Our model, which is underpinned by social enterprise principles, combines commercial-scale childcare operation with a strong community ethos and wraparound provision for families, while ensuring long-term sustainability.

YMCA Dublin welcomes the State-led early learning and childcare capital programme. We regularly engage with the forward planning and delivery unit. We believe that our community hub model addresses the under-provision of community childcare facilities across the State, particularly in new and developing communities. While we welcome the broad aims of the programme, we require more clarity on processes and expectations before we progress specific proposals, in order to ensure the fidelity of our model is maintained. YMCA Dublin also supports the State's aspiration to build an accessible, high-quality and affordable childcare system, as laid out in the early years action plan, which was launched in one of our community hubs in December. We particularly welcome the commitment to reduce fees to €200 per month over the lifetime of the Government. However, we require more guidance on the roadmap towards meeting this commitment and the implications for providers in relation to core funding, fee capping and inclusive admissions policies.

YMCA Dublin echoes the call for an urgent overhaul of the planning system to increase the supply of childcare places. We have observed numerous examples of vacant and-or not-fit-for-purpose childcare facilities across Dublin, often accompanied by vacant and unsustainable community spaces. While universal design guidelines for childcare provision are required, we would urge consideration of models like our community hub as a potential solution to address the urgent need for community childcare provision, alongside the challenge of ensuring sustainable community spaces in new and developing communities.

Siobhán Duffy and I are from Lios na nÓg Playgroup. We thank the committee for the opportunity to attend today's meeting.

In the past number of years, we have seen research, articles and reports all written on the topic of the importance of early years education, investment and development of the sector from organisations such as UNICEF, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD, Social Justice Ireland and the HSE, to name but a few. It is well documented that a child from birth has a developing brain that develops with a combination of nature versus nurture. The complex neural connections that develop during the early years create the foundations for a child’s development. These connections are fuelled by stimulation, good nutrition, positive life experiences and early learning opportunities. Early years services are an integral part of this critical stage of a child's development. We are at the forefront in helping our children with their holistic development, emotional intelligence, resilience, self-regulation, and school readiness. These young children are our future and it is vital that they are provided with positive, excellent early years experiences to allow their growth and development.

Lios na nÓg Playgroup is a large community early years and school-aged childcare service, situated in Muirhevna Mór, Dundalk, an area of high disadvantage. We are located on the campus of St. Joseph’s National School, a DEIS plus school. Our location lends itself to attracting children mainly from the local area. Due to our location, we experience a high level of social deprivation, poverty, drug and alcohol abuse and the impact this has on the children attending our service as well as their families is seen daily by our staff. In the 18 years we have both worked for Lios na nÓg, we have been witness to many changes in the early years sector, some welcomed, and some issues that need to be reviewed and addressed.

As we are aware of time constraints today, we would like to briefly share a few of our main concerns. In 2016, the access and inclusion model, AIM, programme was launched for children attending their early childhood care and education preschool years. This was welcomed by us because we have always made provision for the inclusion of children with additional needs without funding previous to this. Autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD, and violent and challenging behaviours are becoming more prevalent in our early years service. On average, in the past five years, we have required AIM level 7 support for 11 children each year. In some years, we have required it for up to 17 children. These numbers do not include children who display challenging behaviours without additional development needs.

It also does not include children in our toddler room, as the AIM programme is currently only available for children in our ECCE programme. The increase of children with additional needs in our toddler room can be seen this year with five children - nearly a third of the children in the room - requiring extra support for mild to severe needs. As AIM is not available for this age group, our service supports these children by hiring an extra staff member in the room who is not covered by AIM funding. This is a cost to our service which we are finding hard to sustain.

Inclusion of all children is very important to us, but inclusion must be a positive experience for all children. Children struggling in preschool must have the proper support in place so their needs do not impact negatively on the experience of another child. At a recent meeting with our staff, we discussed the increase in additional needs and challenging behaviours in our service. Our staff commented on emotional and mental burn-out and the need for funded continuing professional development, CPD, for dealing with such behaviours. They also felt funded nationwide availability of parenting programmes was important.

Am I okay for time?

We might publish the rest of the statement on the committee website, in the interest of time, and move on to Ms Murphy.

Go raibh maith agat.

Gabhaim buíochas leis an gcoiste as éisteacht liom faoi na saincheisteanna atá roimh an earnáil chúram leanaí agus áiteanna cúram leanaí atá faoi chosaint an Stáit. I thank the committee for the opportunity to speak today on behalf of Spraoi and Sonas early learning centres.

Across Ireland, more than 213,000 children are enrolled in early learning and childcare services. At Spraoi and Sonas alone, we care for 850 children daily and employ 200 staff. This highlights the essential role our sector plays, not just in children’s development, but in enabling parents to participate fully in the workplace. However, despite increased State investment, the sector is under significant strain. First, access to childcare places remains a major struggle. Demand continues to exceed supply, particularly for babies and full-day care. Waiting lists are now the norm. In Galway city alone, our waiting list exceeds 1,000 children. We regularly see parents unable to return to work simply because they cannot secure a childcare place.

Second, financial sustainability is a growing concern. While core funding has improved affordability and supported wages, providers lack forward certainty. Key funding details are often confirmed too late for proper financial planning. At the same time, services are absorbing rising costs such as sick pay, pension auto-enrolment, energy cost increases and insurance, without clarity on whether these will be supported. Under the fee freeze, providers cannot adjust fees and this is creating real financial pressure.

There are also inequities in the system. Services that were operating before core funding are locked into historical fee levels, while newer services can charge significantly higher fees for similar cost bases. In addition, funding does not reflect the level of investment made in facilities, which removes the incentive to invest in high-quality learning environments for children.

Third, the planning of childcare provision needs urgent reform. Current requirements to include crèches in large housing developments do not ensure long-term viability. Many are poorly located, are not accessible to staff or the wider community and become unsustainable over time. A more strategic approach is needed, with services located in central, accessible areas and designed at an appropriate scale.

Fourth, workforce challenges are the single biggest constraint on growth. Recruitment and retention are ongoing issues, with heavy reliance on staff from abroad and, while these educators are highly valued, this is not a sustainable long-term solution.

Another significant struggle for workforce stability is the ongoing battle for Garda vetting. The timelines currently published on the Garda vetting website state that vetting currently takes eight to ten working days for people who have lived only in Ireland, an additional ten working days if the applicant has lived in another EU state, and up to an additional 20 working days if the applicant has lived in the UK or outside Europe. For example, if I hire a person who has lived in London and Barcelona, it will take 40 working days to get vetting in Ireland. The notice period staff have to give an employer when leaving employment is currently one week if they have been employed for between 13 weeks and two years and, if they have been employed for less than 13 weeks, they do not have to give a week's notice. It is simply not tenable to continue with the timelines I outlined. Staff members must be replaced the very next day in childcare settings to meet our ratios. Employers are put under terrible pressure and it creates safety issues. An apprenticeship model could help to address this, allowing people to earn while they train, creating a stronger pipeline into the sector, and supporting care and education elements of early years provision.

We also face a management pipeline issue. The small pay difference between room leaders and management does not reflect the significant responsibility difference involved. This lack of progression discourages staff from moving into leadership roles, impacting quality and expansion.

Finally, if we are to increase capacity, providers need access to finance and funding certainty. Supporting existing providers to expand is the most efficient way to create new places. The consequences of inaction are clear. They are parents being unable to work, providers being unable to grow and increasing pressure across the system.

It thank the Chair and members of the committee for the opportunity to address them today. I am the founder and chief executive officer of Tigers Childcare. Tigers has been operating for more than 23 years and currently provides 34 services across Ireland. We employ more than 600 colleagues and support more than 3,500 children and their families. Our services range from full-time care in purpose-built facilities to sessional ECCE and school-age childcare services in community centres and schools. We have also taken on autism spectrum disorder, ASD-specific supports, that is preschool units specialised for children with ASD diagnoses.

I have worked in the early years sector for 23 years and currently serve as chairperson of the Fingal County Childcare Committee, a position I have held for 16 years. I have also contributed to several Government-led groups, including the Covid-19 panel with Early Childhood Ireland, ECI, the school-age childcare working group and the workforce development plan. I am also on the retention and employment committee group and work as the chairperson of Childhood Services Ireland, CSI.

Tigers Childcare has consistently engaged constructively with the Government and supports the overall direction of policy. However, based on our experience across our services, the system is now under significant and increasing pressure. The most immediate issue we face is the ability to attract and retain staff. While the sector now aspires to a graduate-led workforce, many qualified graduates are not remaining in the sector. Workforce challenges directly limit our capacity to operate. In some cases, we cannot open rooms safely due to insufficient staffing and therefore have to refuse care to children, with children remaining on waiting lists despite services having the physical capacity to accommodate them.

Staff now represent the single largest cost of childcare provision. We are managing rising wages, recruitment costs, agency staffing, onboarding and training, all within a fixed funding structure. We are facing a 5% wage increase in June just to keep our workforce of 600 employees together, without any corresponding increase in Government funding. The current core funding model also focuses primarily on ratios in rooms and staffing to operate. It does not adequately account for broader operational costs, including capital expenditure. While core funding has provided some short-term stability, it no longer reflects the true cost of delivering services. It does not consistently account for staff cover for leave, breaks or non-contact time. Fee freezes further restrict flexibility, preventing income keeping pace with rising costs. In addition, administrative requirements are significant and divert time and resources away from the direct delivery of childcare on the ground.

Ultimately, the current model is no longer sustainable in its present form. As a result, we are now facing difficult decisions, including the possibility of withdrawing some of our lower-fee services from the core funding scheme, which we do not want to do. While progress has been made, the system has now reached a critical point. It requires the level of investment outlined in the partnership for the public good framework. The impact of under-funding is already evident and, if funding constraints are not addressed, it will not be possible to sustain a stable workforce. Without a stable workforce, we cannot deliver quality care on the ground and without quality care, we risk failing children at a critical stage in their development.

In this context, we respectfully ask the committee to examine workforce pressures as a priority within its work programme; seek clarity from the Department on immediate action plans to attract and retain staff; assess whether core funding accurately reflects the real cost of service delivery; and petition the Minister to consider the need for fee adjustments for services operating below county average rates before September.

I thank the witnesses for their opening statements. Some did not get to finish them, but they will be taken as read and put on the committee website. It is proposed to publish the opening statements to the Oireachtas website. Is that agreed? Agreed.

As always, members have seven minutes of speaking time, which much include witnesses' answers to questions. I want to make sure they strictly adhere to the agenda item under consideration at this meeting. I will call them in the order of the speaking rota and we will start with Deputy Kerrane.

I thank the witnesses for being here this morning, their opening statements and the briefing documentation some of them provided. I have one question for each of the witnesses.

I will begin with YMCA Dublin. Its model is excellent. Incorporating more than just childcare under one roof and supporting the parents of those children is really important, and it is a really worthwhile model. Will Mr. Buchanan speak a little more about the range of partner agencies to which he referred in his opening statement? Will he tell us about the childcare on offer in that regard? Is it something more like wraparound services that he sees as being additional to the childcare provided?

If it is useful, I will speak about the model. As Deputy Kerrane said, at the core of our model is the early learning and care service going through from full day-care to school-aged childcare. This is very much the core of the model. As Deputy Kerrane rightly described, it is wraparound model. Going from the school-aged childcare component, we then have a range of youth work services, from open access through to targeted provision, picking up on the needs in local areas that colleagues referenced. We then move into community services, allowing families and individual residents in areas to pick up on groups that are responding to local need. Wrapped around this, and funded in-house at present, is a family support service where we pick up red flags and concerns about children and young people or their families, and we are able to put supports in place through this service. As can be seen in our briefing paper, we strongly see these as codependent and equal. We see all of these adding value to the model.

Our partners in the development of spaces are referenced in our briefing note. We are in expansion mode and looking to actively develop community hubs in more settings. We speak with local authorities. We are in conversation with the Land Development Agency. On one of the points mentioned earlier about new communities, we have been liaising with the forward planning unit and the approved housing bodies. These are our partners in development. We also partner with local services in terms of meeting local needs, whether these are family support organisations, other youth work organisations or community services. If they are delivering services, we will draw them into our model. Where there are gaps, YMCA Dublin will look to meet the needs.

My next question is for Ms Duffy. Much of her opening statement was about AIM and its limitations. This is having a huge impact on her service and, no doubt, many others. Will Ms Duffy elaborate? I would like to know a little more about co-location with the national school and how she feels that works.

Since the launch of the programme in 2016, we have taken on lot of children each year through AIM. We are now seeing a massive increase in the number of these children, however. We have to apply for AIM level 7 support. That allows us to hire an extra member of staff for the room. These staff are not like SNAs. Because of their needs, some of our children have SNAs who work one-to-one with them. In this case, however, the staff member is shared among a couple of children.

Our issue is that in our toddler room, where we do not have AIM support, we are seeing an increase in the number of children with additional needs and challenging behaviour. This year alone, we have three children who have already been diagnosed with ASD in our toddler room. There is no support for them. As a service, and out of our own money, we then have to hire somebody extra for the room to make sure it is a positive experience for all of the children. This follows through, even though we are speaking about early years, to our school-aged childcare services. Children who come from specialised schools or who may have SNAs in their primary schools come to us with no support whatsoever. This is a big issue for us. I do not why there is such an increase in challenging behaviour and additional needs but it is certainly something that needs to be addressed.

We are located in the grounds of St. Joseph's school. We have a very good relationship with the school, and 72 of our after-schoolers coming from there. It is a DEIS plus school. We work hand in hand with it on initiatives such as the Dina programme. I do not know whether anyone here is familiar with that programme, which is also known as the Incredible Years programme. It is an excellent programme that helps social and emotional regulation in children. These are the types of connections we make with the school next door.

My next question is for Ms Murphy. On funding certainty, there is a commitment in the programme for Government to review core funding. I read that as an overall review of core funding in terms of the costs today versus what core funding is providing for and the nature of the gaps involved. The review is looking at year one, which is a number of years ago. It is looking at the costs from a number of years ago and core funding, which is disappointing. How would Ms Murphy see the position regarding funding certainty?

The main thing about funding certainty is that it is not that we would expect it to be planned many years in advance; it is more that it would be published perhaps six months in advance on a year-to-year basis. Core funding has been fantastic for childcare services in Ireland - and I am the first to say it - but I do see a deficit, and something that would greatly help is to give us those financial details six months in advance. Most businesses prepare their budgets and projections six months out. If we are thinking about expanding our services and going to a financial institution to borrow, we need to have our projections done well in advance, perhaps more than six months in advance in reality. It would be very helpful to have this timeline and advance warning of what the level of funding is going to be.

Measurable costs such as those relating to pension contributions, which we know will increase, and the cost of sick leave - we know where that is going - we can calculate in advance. The problem is that we do not have certainty about or line of sight of what the level of funding will be to allow us to compensate for these in our budgets. We know what our income will be in terms of fees, because there is a fee freeze in place, but it is the corresponding funding to allow us to meet these costs which is creating a real pressure point in terms of planning.

My next question is for Tigers Childcare. Staffing is the single biggest cost. Will Ms Clince gives us an idea of the difference between staffing costs versus core funding?

The income we receive through core funding is approximately 20% of our income. Our staffing costs are approximately 65% to 70% of the cost of the business. The staffing regulation covers the core element in the classroom space, but we cannot operate like this. The regulation does not meet the requirement in the baby room. Every time a nappy is changed or a child is put to sleep, we have to have an extra person in the room to cover the ratio. It is not good practice to bring four babies out for a nappy change at the same time because that is core independent one-to-one time with that child. Core funding does not look at that. It does not factor in that everyone needs to get a break and take a holiday. It does not look at the elements that bring about good practice. If we look at what is good quality childcare, there are three elements. These are staff who really know children and know families and spot when things go wrong and who are there all the time to build really strong relationships. There are also the buildings, which is about making sure that where children go to learn every day is very well looked after, well maintained and has everything that children need to learn from. The third element is family support and wraparound services for when things do go wrong.

I thank the witnesses for being here. I will begin with Ms Clince. I want to speak about retention of staff, which is a core issue for many services like Tigers Childcare. I understand that Tigers Childcare is a very good employer and pays above the standard rate. In a sector which has a majority of females working in it, the hourly rate is not the only concern a lot of the time. It is also about location, being close to home and ensuring that it works around the family. What type of retention policies do private companies like Tigers Childcare have in place? What should other services be doing? What are the main measures that the Government should be putting in place which Ms Clince feels are not there at present?

We can have whatever policy we want in place in respect of retention but the reason people leave is down to pay and conditions. We can have all of the good practice we want. We can have non-contact time, meet people's needs for flexibility, make sure they have good support and supervision with people checking in on them every six weeks, make sure they know their trajectory and have supports like those relating to counselling, but it is about pay and conditions at the end of the day. There are two effects. At the lower end, it is about getting people into the industry with a long-term trajectory so they will stay a long time. If we do not have this, really good staff who have stayed for a long time get burnt out. Both of these issues are happening at the same time and it is a perfect storm. We try to meet pay, and we try to move ahead of the ERO all of the time, but we are not on a level playing field.

I can give her an example of a service in Enfield where we have 16 children sitting on a waiting list and which cannot start because we cannot hire. In the last six months in that service, we have had 40 closures of rooms because we just cannot hire. Part of the reason we cannot hire is that all the services around us are charging €400 or €500 extra per month in their fees and they can pay their staff more than I can in a sustainable way. We are not all on a level playing field and that is a big issue. People have all gone in on different fees. Tigers is not one that has high fees, but we are competing with services that have high fees. It is really disheartening when you do all the right things with your colleagues to make sure they have a good workplace to come to every day, but you cannot compete on pay and conditions, even though you want to.

The Government has continually been told the one thing it can work on is pay and conditions for the sector. The most valuable resource we have for children's outcomes are those people in the classrooms every day. We are scrimping and saving on it, but we should not be scrimping and saving on those people. They should be leaving college as graduates knowing what their trajectory will be for the next 20 years. At the moment, we are relying on a joint labour committee, JLC, agreement each year. The last one was only decided in October, so people are going into the new year and they do not even know what their pay is going to look like for the next 12 months, let alone for the next 20 years. If we want a graduate workforce, because we see that it leads to the best outcomes for children, we should pay staff as they would be paid in any other industry or sector. Our colleagues can see that. A lot of our retention issues are not to do with other services, but with people leaving the sector altogether.

Ms Clince mentioned the service in Enfield, which I wanted to raise as well. A number of parents have been in touch with me about it and have explained the short notice they have got. They are, obviously, sympathetic, and understand it is because of staff shortages, but it is a major inconvenience for them.

Absolutely.

It happens to all of us at times, but this seems to be really regular. I have raised it with the Department, and there is an acknowledgement that this is affecting people. There is sympathy there. A buffer is in place for services like Tigers, and it may be easier for services like it if there are services close by to bring staff in. For a smaller provider that gets that buffer, if they do not have other services nearby, there is no option. In what way does the Department need to help when there is short notice sick leave so it will not affect parents?

It is almost impossible unless it gets behind working conditions and it moves to better pay. In the context of Enfield, we have two services that stand out. We have a service in Cork that is badly affected because of its location and other services around it. That is why we are giving a 5% pay increase. We have to do it. The Deputy can imagine the amount of work that goes into that. We are doing it to make sure it is sustainable. We cannot make leaps like that without being able to maintain 600 people in a workforce, all of whom will be taking that leap. We are doing that because it is the right thing to do, but we should not continually have to be the ones leading from the front.

We should have a Government that supports this type of trajectory and sees where the main problem is. Every report that has come out in the last five years has said that if the Government wants to make a difference to quality in the sector and to outcomes for children, that difference would be pay and conditions for our colleagues. Every time, though, the leap is just not made in this regard. Work is being done on JLCs and four-year plans are being looked at, and it is great to see a Government that is for the first time looking at longer term plans for this sector, but we are in a crisis where we need things to happen quickly, and not just the four-year plan down the road. The sector will not be here if we continue to rely on those types of things.

I have one more question for Ms Clince. She has been an advocate for the industry for a long time. The national conversation on early learning and school age childcare is open at the moment and we have events in County Meath next week. Has Ms Clince been a part of that process and will she be at those events? I encourage people to attend.

Absolutely, yes. I am plugged into the one in Fingal, so I will be at that one. I will be happy to attend the one in Meath as well. The messaging will definitely get across.

Tá fáilte roimh na finnéithe go léir. It sounds to me like there are significant issues in early childcare. I do not think that will come as a shock to many of us. The long-term worry is the sustainability of the businesses and the industry, and ensuring providers can recruit and retain people, which is obviously a huge issue. I should probably put it on record that Lios na nÓg is very well known to me. We used the service ourselves and it is on the campus of St. Joseph’s National School, which we used to see almost as a family business. My father was the principal, my mother and my wife worked in it and my sister-in-law still does. That is everything declared. Everybody is very welcome, but particularly Ms Duffy and Ms Watters.

In fairness, Deputy Kerrane brought up the issue of AIM and that it is not available in the toddler room. In the context of the ratios the services are meant to operate on, they are operating on the basis of adding more staff in because they are dealing with so many kids with complex issues. That includes kids with additional needs and those that just have complex behaviours. That is the reality of the world we live in. It is also probably a recognition of the area the services are operating in. The big issue is the financial pressure that delivering this creates. How precarious is the business model?

I come from the early years perspective, so I am looking to make it the most positive and best experience for these children. Ms Duffy grows the business aspect of it. As a service, we are a little different. We actually closed one of our rooms in the last two years to create a multipurpose room to help children with additional needs and challenging behaviour, and our staff. It is all linked. If we have staff who are not getting paid enough, who have an issue with their conditions of work and who are getting burnt out because a lot of people are ringing in sick and there are children that have challenging behaviour, how do you create a model that is supportive for everybody? What we did was create a sunshine room. It has worked out amazingly, but it costs a lot of money, at our expense. We have extra staff in our rooms. Last year, we tried to recruit staff, and out of 20 CVs, 19 candidates did not live in Ireland, were not qualified and could not work in Ireland. Where do we go from there? Like the Tigers service, we try our best not to have to shut a room and ring parents on Monday morning to tell them we have five staff out sick. It is about getting a balance between having a positive, fabulous centre, which we have, that supports staff and children, but then it does not work financially. Of our total income, 83% goes on wages alone. That is massive.

It is about retaining our staff and recognising the value of our staff because without staff, we will not have a service and the young children will not have a positive experience in early years. It is all interlinked. As was said, our main focus is on staff in order to give our children the most positive experience in the early years. However, as Ms Duffy said, the financial aspect of it is huge for us in Lios na nÓg. We have decided to increase our staff in different rooms to help children with their behaviour and needs. That has added a cost to the business.

At the moment, 86% of our income goes on staff costs. That is a lot of money, and that is for this year. To forecast for next year, one source of our funding comes from the national childcare scheme, NCS, and it depends on children's attendance. We cannot always forecast that the children will be in and that has to be reflected in our funding. This means our funding may decrease. It can be very difficult to forecast budgets when we are dependent on the children coming in. There is also the aspect of keeping our staff incentivised and to help with the burnout factor. We are always trying to keep a positive, happy atmosphere in the building, and that also requires investment.

Another issue we come across is term-time contracts. We would have some staff on 52-week contracts, but some of our staff have to draw social welfare during the summer. That also causes issues. Only this week, I have had three staff in begging for 52 weeks of work. We have done that, again to the detriment of the business-----

It takes a huge level of time to actually get that payment and it is not sustainable long term.

No. They cannot go to the social welfare department until the day they are finished for the summer. Some of the girls last year did not get a payment until nearly September, so they had no money over the summer. That is unacceptable. We took staff in last summer. In fairness, they were brilliant. They were painting furniture if they had to and doing everything just so we could provide them with a wage over the summer. We did not have the funding to cover those wages. That ended up with us being in a deficit. That does not work. It is not sustainainable and that is why people are walking away from the sector.

It is hard to say at this stage, but the business model is not sustainable.

It is not sustainable. Absolutely not. People who have done four years and get honours degrees in early years are not getting the money. I can speak from a personal position. My daughter, who recently graduated in teaching from Marino Institute of Education, in her first year in college was able to go in to the school next door and substitute for €35 an hour, but somebody else can do four years of college and come out and expect to be paid €17.50.

It is absolutely crazy. The witnesses could be dealing with children who will be inconsistent in their attendance, but then that means they are getting paid less so they cannot even rely on that level of money. What would a working model look like? What does a model that delivers for kids, especially those with complex needs, look like? Have the witnesses ever had to refuse anyone?

Give them a chance to answer.

We had to refuse a child for the first time this year, which was really heartbreaking for us. We still have them there but we have no place for that child because we do not have one-to-one staff - he has very complex needs - to take that child in. That child has missed out on their first year of preschool because we cannot get the staff to do it.

I thank everyone for coming in and for their presentations and opening statements. I also thank them all for the great work they do. I will start with Mary Murphy and Theresa Murphy. I was amused at the name of their centre. I am not sure whether they are still going but when I was in national school, every Christmas we got annuals, one Spraoi and the other Sonas, depending on which class.

That is exactly why we chose it.

Is that why you chose the name? God, it brought me back. I do not know whether they are still going.

They are still going.

The excitement. That is gas. They mentioned an apprenticeship model. Will they expand a bit on that? How would they safeguard the quality of the staff while improving recruitment and retention?

The apprenticeship model is probably the one thing I would like people to take on board as a suggestion today. I was in the UK recently and visited 12 nurseries in the UK, where we observed how the apprenticeship model is working very successfully. In the UK, there is a set ratio or proportion of staff who can be unqualified. While I acknowledge the massive leaps forward we have made in Ireland over the past ten years or so in terms of the qualification profile of the staff in early years, given what we heard today and our own experience in childcare, the crisis in access to staff is such that we require steps that are outside of where we would ideally like to be. which is to bring staff members in who are unqualified.

We have a very good structure in Ireland to have an apprenticeship model introduced. The employment regulation order, ERO, that was brought into childcare a number of years ago set out very distinct roles in terms of management, room leadership and all of that, so we have a strong structure in place in managing the responsibilities and the oversight of a room in terms of the creation of the room leader role. That is well-established across the sector. That creates an opportunity to have a portion of staff coming in on an apprentice model unqualified because that room leader role is in place. It may require us to define out what that role involves in terms of oversight in the room to ensure that it is a safe model and a safe system, when you are bringing staff in who are unqualified initially. That structure is already there and, with a relatively small amount of work to develop out the responsibilities and the supervisory system, we could have a feasible model quite quickly. It will require a training programme to be put in place but there are institutions all over the country that are already delivering childcare training. It may just be that the classroom element of it needs to be tailored to what we need.

The other advantage to the apprenticeship model is it will bring people into a sector that is absolutely crying out for staff. We already have recognition from the Department during the summer period, when there is a reduced threshold for qualification recognition because the Department recognises that the sector is under pressure to cover holidays during the summer period. We already have a system there whereby we are allowing people to come into crèches who do not meet the ordinary threshold for qualification. It is a matter of rolling that out further and developing out the legislation and the rules around that to make sure it is a very safe system. I believe we are already a long way there in the structures we need to deliver an apprenticeship programme.

It sounds like a great idea.

My next question is to the YMCA. It was said that the community hub model differs from traditional childcare provision. Will Mr. Buchanan or Ms O'Mahony expand on how it differs and how it works?

I thank the Senator for the question. Referring back to an earlier response, where it differs is there are lines of other services that wrap around, with the child and the childcare service at the core of that, but with the wraparound services in place. From a child development perspective, we see that as the best approach in that we are not considering a child in isolation. A child is part of a family unit which is part of a community. Having that broader set of services is fundamentally important to that in terms of the development of the child.

We have talked about sustainability, risk and financial models. What our model allows us to do is to balance some of the risk within that where you have a series of different income streams. You have services complementing each other, but you have a series of different income streams complementing each other and those delivered with social enterprise principles can underpin or prop up some of the other services. Colleagues here mentioned, for example, our family support service, which as it stands is mostly funded internally from either profits elsewhere or corporate social responsibility, CSR, work or other grant applications. We see a model in there as well.

The final part of that response is we see an answer for developments looking for community and childcare facilities in them where, again, if those are joined together, there is much more efficiency, you are meeting a need collectively on one site and sharing and managing overheads across a number of services. You are sharing and managing your governance from a board level and your senior management structure. Again, there is an efficiency and a complementarity in that.

I thank Mr. Buchanan. Ms Watters and Ms Duffy touched on the AIM programme and how they have seen a sharp increase in children with additional needs. They spoke about it already but will they expand on what changes to the AIM programme are needed to support younger children?

When the AIM programme was introduced there was a review. Thankfully, we are now able to have AIM funding at non-term times. That has been fantastic because that was not available to us for many years. It really needs to be expanded out to the age groups of two- to three-year olds and school-age childcare. Before this, it was always considered you could not get a diagnosis of a child who was a toddler, but three of my children this year have a diagnosis of ASD already. It is very clear that these children need support. Inclusion is so important for all the children but it has to be a positive experience for all the children in the classroom. If you have children who have needs who do not have that support there, they then struggle and the other children struggle because they are not getting the experience they deserve. It 100% needs to be introduced for two- to three-year olds and sooner rather than later.

Now we move to Deputy Ward.

I thank the witnesses for coming in.

Apologies, Senator Keogan is back.

That is no problem. I will try to be as brief as I can. The witnesses are all very welcome. Some of the questions may have already been answered, so forgive me if I repeat them. It will give them another opportunity to answer again.

I will start with Mr. Buchanan and Ms O’Mahony. Apart from the community model hub, do they see any alternative approaches to reforming the childcare planning system? How do they define childcare facilities that are not fit for purpose or are becoming unsustainable as community spaces?

Will Ms Clince tell us what changes or reforms she would like to see made to the core funding scheme? Will she explain the recruitment process, including the main stages involved and how long the process actually takes?

Will Ms Theresa Murphy outline her proposals for childcare planning and provision reforms and explain how she believes they would improve the sector? Has she seen a difference in fees charged by services before and after the introduction of core funding? What are the reasons for this disparity?

To Ms Duffy, the Garda vetting process seems to take forever. It does not make any difference whether you are in the voluntary sector or the one the witnesses are in. Will she outline how difficult the impact of that delay on staffing and service delivery is for the sector? Will she also elaborate on the specific challenges her organisation faced in operating in highly disadvantaged areas?

I will start if that is okay. I will try to be brief in my response to let colleagues come in. The requirement that puts a creche facility in place based on the number of houses in a particular locality causes significant issues where you will have what is a reasonably small creche facility put in place to meet the bare bones of a planning requirement. A massive number of those are sitting empty across Dublin because there simply is not the scale for them to be viable. Whether that is a commercial operator or a community operator, if there is not the scale available or if there is not a larger entity to run those off it is not viable as a business. Unless the income can supersede the expenditure it is not doable. There is that very specific location piece as well. We have observed widely the separation of the creche facility from a community facility in new developments, especially social housing developments. This strikes us as a completely inefficient approach in terms of the finances of that and the development piece. Again, there are two separate entities with two separate governance structures. There is much more efficiency and sustainability when those are thought about together and it meets the wraparound requirement for services also.

I will take the one on core funding. The initial change we would like to see is that core funding should match the workforce development plan, so you have a workforce development plan in place for what the sector should look like regarding roles by 2028. However, the core funding does not match that. Pedagogical leadership, family liaison officers, out-of-ratio staff - none of them are funded in core funding but they all sit in the workforce development. We are trying to do best practice and move towards doing everything that is in that workforce development plan but we do not have funding to do it. That is probably the first fundamental thing that can change. Knowing what core funding is in advance would be beneficial, as one of our other representatives here has said, as would looking at the recruitment process. If we are recruiting a staff member, we put that recruitment out and get a number of CVs that have to be sorted through. The majority of those are not suitable for the role as they are living outside the State or do not have the qualification level. They are then passed to the managers because it is important the managers recruit as they know their teams, what they are looking for and who will fit well. They have to find time to do that recruitment while dealing with all the issues on the ground, like closures and everything else. Once they recruit we have to go through the process of vetting but also checking CVs to check references and make sure they all stack up to what they should. We do a three-day induction programme for our colleagues as well and we have found that once you recruit someone you need to get them in the door really quickly because if you do not get them in the door and pay them really quickly they will find somebody else who will pay them quicker, so you have to try to do that really effectively and really quickly. Most of the time, out of every four people we hire and get through that stage, two will walk away before you recruit them, to work for somebody else who is willing to pay them more because they are such a scarce resource.

It is hard to retain them.

Even before you get them in it is hard to retain them. You can have recruited them and before they even start with you they will move to somebody else for a higher pay packet. In Tigers we stick so readily to regulation, do not work over ratio and do all the right things and consequently we find that once staff are in the door it is easier to retain them, but getting them in the door is hard enough.

On the Garda vetting, it depends on the time of year you apply because obviously it gets busier coming up to September when you are recruiting new staff and things like that. There is also a difference of where you can go for your Garda vetting. You can be Garda vetted for say, Early Childhood Ireland, but then for Tusla or say, the boards of management, it takes a lot longer as well. The thing we would like to see is within primary schools if somebody has rung in sick there is an app teachers can go on and see there is work here today and go and work in that school. You cannot do that in early years as there is no blanket Garda vetting. In schools, once you are vetted with, say, the Archdiocese of Armagh, you can work in a number of schools. You have to be individually Garda-vetted for each service, however. That is not practical given the length of time it takes to get that done.

On our area, there is a lot of social deprivation and a lot of parents who may be struggling to get their children into school. Ratios are far too high for our area. There was talk before that in DEIS areas the ratios would be reduced. That is what we have done ourselves, at a cost to the service. We sit at maybe 1:8 as opposed to 1:11 in an ECCE room. That has worked out a lot better and also helped retain staff and avoid them getting burned out, so we think a ratio of 1:8 in an ECCE room should be introduced across the board.

My understanding is a creche is required for every development of over 70 units. However, my experience as an operator who has a creche in a housing development is that after about ten years the requirement of that development generally tends to change as children get older and move on to primary and secondary school. In order to survive, that creche then has to bring families from outside the housing development in, which is contrary to good planning in the context of making a housing development. Sometimes a route through is needed for people coming to use the service, which strikes me as contrary to good planning. The other issue is they are often built as very small, unsustainable units. For example, a new unit in a housing development in Galway city has gone for sale this week. It is 1,650 ft sq. ft, which is not a sustainable size for a service. It will not attract a provider to go in there and operate it, but the developer has ticked the box by doing what they had to do to meet the planning requirements. However, it deprives the sector of service that is very much needed.

On the core funding-----

We will come back to it in the next round.

We move to Deputy Ward.

I am going to come right back to Ms Murphy. I am very interested in the term "unqualified". What does that look like, as in the training and the shadowing? Will there be a pathway where the services are taking people in, giving them this opportunity and then saying to them down the line that there is a career here and a degree so they can keep going? Is this what it looks like? I would like everybody else to answer that.

To me, absolutely but as a provider in the sector we urgently need to get people in and at least working towards the minimum qualification which is the FETAC level 5 or QQI level 5. It is about getting people on a path where they are working towards the level 5, whether through practical apprenticeship work on the ground where they are being paid from day one and moving on to level 5. After level 5 they can then seek to move to the degree qualification but it serves two purposes in that it gets people in the door, keeps classrooms open - which we have heard much mention of here - but it also gets people on a trajectory towards a level 8. Not every staff member needs to aim towards a level 8 and in my experience a level 8 degree is not something that suits every person. Childcare is a career that also suits a very vocational type of person who does not want an academic qualification but who is very good at working with children. They need to have a level of qualification and training, like safeguarding training and all of that. To aim towards a level 5 as an initial point would be a great success.

I worked with the apprenticeship framework within the UK and have lots of learning from that. Generally, you would expect colleagues would go in and do a certain amount of college training prior to starting. They might have a block of six weeks that would do for all their child protection training and the basic training they need to be safe on the ground going through the door, because there are certain things they need to know before they start to make sure they are not a risk to the children they are going to care for. Then the general model was these people would work three days within a service while being paid by the service at a lower rate. I recommend that is not done because most of the people fell off, so they have to be paid like the rest of their colleagues or they will not stay. From there, they get one day of study leave and one day when they are in college working up their programme. It worked incredibly well. We decided, as a company, to do that and pay them exactly like the entry-level colleagues and those colleagues stayed with us, really learned and really became engrossed in the service and part of it. We are talking about auxiliary people to run a business.

At the moment, we are only funded for the people who are in-ratio but we need all those auxiliary staff. Why then can the apprenticeship model not be used in auxiliary roles within the service, even for this first year until they get their level 5 qualification, with safety measures around child protection in particular? It worked incredibly well.

At Lios na nÓg, we pride ourselves on taking on a lot of students. We take them from as far as DCU and Marino. We put a programme in place so they get a very much hands-on experience while they are there. Sitting in the classroom is great and the academic aspect is very good but when you are there in the thick of it, it is very different. DCU in particular has a fantastic mentoring programme we link in with as well. Linking with colleges with those types of programmes would be very effective for apprenticeships. It is a good idea. It would mean we have more staff, employed through the apprenticeship programme. They might then decide to stay in the sector because they would be getting paid from the start, getting experience and feeling valued for continuing with their education. We could then perhaps encourage them to go on to degree level. We find sometimes that students come in, especially to level 5, and they just say, "This is not for me.", because they are only in for two weeks.

An apprenticeship is a much better dynamic to having people covering on the ground. When you have agency colleagues in, it is different people. Not all of us can remember being in a preschool setting but we can all remember being in school. One can imagine being in first class, sitting in the classroom and eight different teachers come in during that year. Your outcomes are not going to be very good. For a child in that classroom coming from deprivation and with social issues and stuff going on in their family, eight different teachers are not going to know about that or notice it. That is the impact on early years children, whereas if we had apprenticeship staff, it would be the same colleagues in the same service over the year helping with those issues on the ground. It is important that we remember the transitionary nature of colleagues and turnover at the moment. The people it affects the most are those children in the classroom. That is why we have to have something straight away that plugs the gap. We need a longer term plan but we also need a shorter term plan that helps to not impact children on the ground.

Quite a while ago, we used to participate in an apprenticeship model with community employment in childcare. That worked really well for us. We have staff who still work with us now, 16 or 17 years later, because of that model. They came in on level 5, did their 19.5 hours working with us, did their course the rest of the week and were fully trained on level 5 over two years. Some moved on to level 6. That was brilliant and should not have been stopped. It really helped the sector at that time. We have long-term staff from that who have been with us all that time. They are the quality staff in the room who know the kids, families and communities. We are trialling it a little with our school-age childcare at the moment, taking people in who do not necessarily have a childcare qualification. We have come up with a role called a play worker. They work in school-age childcare and transition into young youth age groups in the evening. We are trialling bringing those people in, training them up while they are on the ground and looking to get some play work qualifications as well. They will, I hope, stay with us and become full-time members of our staff. The apprenticeship model should definitely be looked at. The Wheel approached us about an apprenticeship model and we have put in a proposal for that.

Would the witnesses all agree that we need a more centralised Garda vetting process - one that controls, is quick, accessible and has a timeline?

Absolutely. At the moment, we are experiencing a 30-day to 40-day turnaround time for Garda vetting. It is crippling. There is no other way to describe it.

An online system that is updated and which everyone could link into would be a more well-rounded way of doing things.

We need blanket Garda vetting, so that people can work in any service in their area without having to be Garda vetted every time.

It should be similar to the system in the North.

The witnesses are all very welcome. I thank them for coming in. It is so obvious that staffing and staff retention is the biggest issue in the sector. I come from the community sector myself. I have worked in models like those in which the witnesses are involved and the YMCA. I worked in a very similar model with wraparound supports. I am a big believer in models that are quick to pick up on additional needs of families and quick provision. I mean no disrespect because we have all different providers here, but my idea of a State-led model is community based. We have to be careful there is not a transfer of funds. We have seen in other sectors, in particular housing, a direct transfer of State money to private providers. This has caused mayhem and we can see the consequences of it now. When commercial providers are part of State-led provision, how can we ensure there is connectivity with community, referrals and linking in with community groups, schools, wraparound programmes and family support programmes? It is important that it is not just a direct transition from parents paying childcare fees to the State directly paying for it. I know Ms Clince has been on the childcare committee.

There are ways; it is really about where the money is going from the State. That has caused a lot of the issues between government and the sector. A lot of the provision in Ireland is by private providers who have committed their lives to this in a sector that does not have high profit margins. That is acknowledged in all of the reports. It is about where you put the money. There is distrust between both because of the funding coming into the sector and where it is going. Funding going directly to staff pay and conditions is the best place because then we know where it goes. I would just become an administrator of that money and administer it directly to the people who work in the sector. That would take out the guessing game, where we are giving out all this money to the sector but asking where does it go. The ASD units we work with in preschool are an example. We have colleagues who are all qualified schoolteachers with teacher numbers. We register them and they work directly with the children. It is a really good programme with high-quality delivery. There are six children in a classroom with four teachers. It is high impact. We directly register all of those teachers. We receive their pay and just pass it along. We have no contact with the funds whatsoever.

We know early years providers are way underpaid. Would Ms Clince see the role as the same as teachers or SNAs?

Absolutely.

The same as teachers. That would be on the base level coming in.

They are degree-level colleagues. They are just learning about a different part of development. I sat the degree myself. It is so rich in learning. I worked with children prior to do doing that degree but the learning I had in that degree is second to none, being able to put what you do on the ground with your passion into understanding and learning why you are doing it. You become really rich in your learning.

That would take in my concern that the wage should be paid directly to staff at the wage level the State funding is providing.

I agree with Ms Clince on directing money to staff wages. There were also well-proven schemes in the past where funding was directed towards capital investment. There is no incentive for services to spend capital expenditure or put money into developing the environments because of how core funding is directed. That is a shortfall so there will stagnation in the sector. It is very easy to have an accountable system where there is development. It is a receipted system, effectively. It has been done in the past. It worked fairly well, even in the childcare sector. It provides opportunities to develop the services and environments for the children. I agree on staff but the physical environment is also very important. While it is a predominantly private provider sector, all of those private providers are community based in that they are all based in their own community, employing members of the community in most cases. For that reason, I think that even though we are mostly private providers, we are deeply embedded in the local community in which we operate.

That is the importance of sitting on things like childcare committees, child and family support networks, CFSNs, and children and young people's services committees, CYPSCs.

Targeted funding around ensuring private providers link in with local schools and for specific measures is important because in a private service it is very difficult to find ring-fenced funds to do those types of engagement when you are already strained in terms of spending to meet legal requirements on staff levels.

It is hard then to try to ring-fence funds outside of that to meet the things you really want to do as opposed to the things you have to do. If the Department were to ring-fence funds for those specific community engagement measures-----

Ms Murphy would need staff to go to meetings. Is that what she means?

It is the funding of the staff to go to those meetings. We have recruitment issues in getting those staff in the first place, which goes back to the level of funding available to offer them in terms of pay. By offering higher pay we are going to attract more into the sector to make more available to partake of those things

To participate.

How we get to that point is a circle.

That again is about the ratio. Ms Duffy said she provides additional staff. How is that for auto-enrolment? If they are not seen as being part of the core funding for the ratio, how are their contributions to auto-enrolment paid for?

We hire them. They are permanently with us then. We put that into core funding. We get some funding towards it but it is not enough, as we said before, with the core funding linked to that. To go purely by the regulations, for example, for a ECCE room of two staff to 22 children, that is not practical or feasible. We then have to hire extra people for that and the wage bill goes up.

How is auto-enrolment working out? In other sectors, such as the voluntary and community sector where I worked, they are still waiting for confirmation. Nothing is very clear on it. If it was the case that extra staff were employed outside the ratio, how does their auto-enrolment work? Are they just seen as additional staff?

Yes. They are just seen as extra staff across the board.

Has confirmation been received regarding auto-enrolment?

It is a huge cost for which we have no support.

Is no confirmation about it being received?

No.

It is time for my questions and then we should have time for a brief second round. At the end, I can give all participants a minute to close. They can be thinking about that in advance.

I will talk about State-led childcare. We know that €135 million has been assigned for four years. In the first year, eight already built buildings are being looked at. I am trying to look ahead to the greenfield sites in the coming years and not repeating the mistakes of the past. We spoke about the building regulations already. We heard that some crèches are not fit for purpose and about changing the way an estate functions as children grow. In my area, which is a rural area, we do not have estates where 70 units are being built at the same time. There is a cumulative build-up and no extra facilities. I am looking ahead at greenfield sites. What is the most efficient way the State can do that? Tigers Childcare has a lot of facilities throughout the country. When it is setting up new places, is there a copy and paste model? If there is a greenfield site with a view to building a purpose-built facility, when we get to that point we would like to be able to copy and paste and save time by looking at ways for procurement, for furniture and for plans. What is Ms Clince's opinion on that?

We generally go through acquisitions. We do very few greenfield sites because the cost of being able to get them at the moment is prohibitory. However, we consult developers on a lot of greenfield sites. The IDA is one of them. When we see the plans for what developers are building, they are never fit for purpose. You have to say to them, for example, that toilets do not make sense outside a room or there needs to be a lobby here. They will know the ratios of children to space but they might have 26 children in an ECCE room when there can only be 22. Certainly, having templates that developers have to use is important. Unless it is a very rural community there is no point in putting in a two-classroom space. A service needs to have at least four classrooms to be able to operate and make it viable. We should definitely have templated models. Where you have a more rural area, and not the housing estate itself having 90 homes, it is about what is going to be built there cumulatively between those developers and them having to come together to put a space in on their planning. Those are the type of things that would help in making units viable, whether for private or for community development. We are all looking for the same settings that make sense for us. That would really help.

When we are looking at it, we should be imagining a building that can be repurposed. If it is put into an area as a greenfield site, over time that area might get older and it might need to be repurposed.

From what the YMCA said, we can see that as the community grows we might need early years services at one stage. but then it will be school-aged childcare and then youth services. A service can certainly grow with the community to have a different purpose.

In regard to operational capacity, I am from a rural area. A lot of our services are in fairly rural areas or small villages and towns. One example of where we have come across a direct clash with planning regulations and the possibility of expansion was in Clarinbridge, County Galway. We currently have 24 parking spaces. I have been monitoring it every day on the CCTV for the last while because we want to double the size of our service. Six of those parking spaces are used on a daily basis. We want to double the size of our service but that means we need to double the number of car-parking spaces. We do not have the ground to do that but we are only using 25% of the car-parking spaces as it is. The county development plan is very direct in terms of the parking requirements. If we are looking at village centres and town centres, and spaces that can be utilised over a time period for different purposes, the restriction on car parking at the moment is out of line with reality in terms of the needs of services. However, we are blocked from expanding.

We need to look at a solution for that. I had an argument very similar to that with the Minister recently. They were saying that either the local authority or An Coimisiún Pleanála has to look at a building not as what it is being used for right now but what it could be used for. In that case, could modular rooms potentially be used? The crèche might commit to use this building for ten years but after that it could be sold onto a primary care centre or something that might need all those spaces. Is Ms Murphy proposing some flexibility like that?

A solution for early years is definitely a drop-off area. Most people drop for a short period of time. Even those the Cathaoirleach mentioned are not all-day parkers. The staff who work in them are but the service users are generally there for a relatively short period in terms of the usage of the car space. To have drop-off areas that would replace the requirement for so many car parking spaces would fulfil that in the short term.

My piece is the push-back. Right now, it might be an early years service that only needs a drop-off but the building could be around a lot longer after the early years service, so the local authority or An Coimisiún Pleanála are pushing for extra spaces. How do we get around that? Is it a case of more modular-type buildings that can be moved afterwards?

Modular is one obvious solution to that problem. It does not create the ideal environment for children. There has to be a balance of priorities in that context.

The schools can do the drop-offs but it is about that long-term planning. Does anyone want to come in?

Our dream is to be thinking about greenfield sites and building our optimum, and building together with the services wrapped around. However, in contested space around Dublin that is a bit of a challenge. Our piece in that is the clarity on the operating model that would be in place around that physical building. A clear point was made that we cannot consider the early learning and care service in isolation in terms of there being a longer, sustainable piece in the community. The State-led capital programme, understandably in terms of State funding, is very much viewing the childcare component in isolation. We are pushing for a broader consideration. That piece has its place but we need to have more flexibility in what funds may be used for, where they might be reinvested and how other elements of State funding could come in place to fund the broader model. For us, when we have that assurance on the eventual operating model, there is certainly a way forward in terms of ideal design. Ms Clince summarised that perfectly.

I am conscious Mr. Buchanan has that beautiful wraparound service. Would he prefer crèches and early years services to be located beside schools? Does he think they are better near family resource centres or primary care centres so that youth-work piece and after-school service can be brought in? Is there an ideal there? I have gone over my time so we can go back to it in the second round.

An unhelpful answer is - any of those. Co-located or located alongside schools is optimum for an after-school service. What we are looking at is where there are not existing services that we can fill a gap in, and then complement and work with others around that.

We will now go into the second round with four minutes each. I am conscious that some Deputies might come back and get their slots.

I will come back briefly to the apprenticeships. That is an interesting concept that I have heard here and there throughout the discussion.

Would there be any fear among existing staff, the childcare professionals who are already there and getting a wage, that somebody who has not done the level 5 course or the degree could come in to the profession and get the same rate of pay? I am trying to think of questions that might be asked of us. I invite the witnesses to speak to that. Could that cause an issue with existing professionals? How might we be able to deal with that? I apologise but I missed what Ms O'Mahony said in relation to something that used to be in place when we were talking about apprenticeships.

Under the community employment, CE, scheme, there used to be a childcare apprenticeship model.

In relation to the wage piece, the way we have our wage structure set up is that each colleague, on his or her journey, can come into three tiers. They would have their entry level at level 5 and then, depending on the length of service both in the industry and with Tigers, they would be able to tier up. For each of those tiers, we have three different bands that they can fit into. I would imagine that the apprentice would probably stay on the lowest one, whereas colleagues who have come in and done a year's service will have already lifted to the first level. There is, therefore, a way of managing that so that people who are qualified sit above the people coming in on their apprenticeship. That said, the apprentices are still acknowledged as being part of the team, working just like the rest of the team within the service. That camaraderie and building of the team is very important on the ground.

I think the possibility of creating apprenticeships actually creates great opportunity in terms of career progression as well. One of the problems we are seeing is a real reluctance from staff to progress up the model because there are such small gaps between the current stages or levels of staffing. To get staff to move into management is difficult because the pay is not there to incentivise it, so by bringing in apprenticeships, we are creating additional responsibilities. If the pay follows those additional responsibilities, then there will be more of an incentive for staff to move into management. That leads to more sticky staff who are there for longer and that benefits children in the services greatly. If we are talking about a State-led model in the long term, the State is going to have to pull on managers from the current pool, which is mostly private providers who are already struggling to get people into a management pipeline. Creating a system where we are moving more and more people into management will make it an easier process in the long term if the State does increase its involvement in the provision of childcare.

A huge benefit of that is exactly as Ms Clince said, in terms of having that one person who is consistently there, particularly for children for whom it is not like that at home. The benefit of having that one person outweighs any issues in terms of pay and this or that. As to my question about having staff at different levels, I appreciate that can be overcome. I thank Ms Clince for that.

When we look at quality provision, that is the biggest marker of quality. When I wake up every day what I want is for something not to happen to a child in my watch. When colleagues are in the room they know those children and they can see everything. Anything can happen in families. People hit bumps in the road but it is about people noticing it and it is our job to put our arms around those families, support them and fill in those gaps when they are there. If we do not know the children or their families, we do not notice. That is why there is a need for really high-quality supports.

I see the system as having two tiers. Graduates have to be treated in one light, with a proper trajectory like a school teacher, and then our people who are qualifying through apprenticeship level 5 and level 6 need to be incentivised in wages to get there. There is a two-tier system that needs to be in place but both work well with one another. As we have heard today, some people do not want be, or feel the need to be, at a graduate level but there would still be a proper pay scale for those underneath.

The witnesses have provided a significant amount of information in relation to the difficulties and we will probably need to have a follow-up meeting with the Minister. Unfortunately, some of these issues go beyond the remit of the Minister for children. There are very obvious issues around the NCS which are ridiculous. We need to look at that scheme. There is also obviously a wider issue in relation to pay rates.

As much as we all want a perfect world where there are 52-week contracts, the issue of social protection has come up multiple times with different groups and we, as a committee, should at least put a question into the Minister on it.

The Garda vetting process is an across-the-board disaster. It does not make any sense that we do not have a comprehensive, fit-for-purpose system that means that people are properly vetted and the information is updated and available to all who need it. If people move from facility A to facility B, which is 20 yards down the road, they should not need another Garda vetting certificate.

The big question is, where do we go from here? We can talk about a State-led model in a perfect world. The witnesses also form part of the early intervention model. We know there will be families who go through really difficult times and we need supports to be provided to them as quickly as possible. If more is needed, it should be realised at an early stage and all necessary State agencies should be involved. That is missing across the board. Regardless of whether we are talking about a State-led system or the business model the witnesses are trying to operate, the fact is that there is not sufficient money being provided to make this work. That applies to the providers here as well as the individuals working in the sector.

The witnesses have already dealt with some of the issues I am raising. What needs to happen now? How imminent is the danger of some childcare facilities closing or reducing the services they are offering at the minute?

We currently have some rooms closed. We had no option but to close them. In terms of the knock-on effect, it is imminent and it is happening.

What changes that?

The availability of staff.

It is staff, straight out.

Yes, staff availability.

I have looked at priorities and timelines. We have a joint labour committee that is due to start meeting straight away. Will it meet? That is still a bit up in the air because people are unhappy with how it has been dealt with previously. We need a wage scale by September of next year. We have one year to work on that. We can probably hold on for one year but we need interim measures in relation to that one year. We need an apprenticeship model starting next year as well. Why are we not on the critical skills list to be able to have colleagues from outside of the EU? We have incredible colleagues, particularly in Brazil, which has an incredible early years degree programme. We are inundated, as I am sure everyone here is, with colleagues applying for those roles but we cannot hire them. We are in a critical crisis but we are not on the critical skills list. We are actually on the ineligible list. That is an issue that could be addressed straight away.

We also need to look at staff burnout. It is great to hear that there are early intervention units but we need to see them across the board. If we are opening State-run childcare facilities, they should all have early intervention units from the first day of opening because that takes the pressure off. Inclusion is great and it is very easy in a classroom if a child has mild additional needs, but if a child has severe needs, that is very difficult to manage.

I want to come in on that last point and the increased challenges from children with additional needs and children who are in the foster care system. The witnesses have an opportunity to speak today. I am sure Tusla is listening in this morning. What are the witnesses asking for? Support is needed even more so for those children. Every child is important but those children are probably coming from different backgrounds. What are the witnesses' asking for this morning with regard to support for children with disabilities and children in foster care?

The first thing would be having those wraparound supports at hand very quickly. We have a great relationship with wraparound service providers such as speech and language therapists who come into our service to observe the children. While that is fantastic, there is not enough of that for all of the children that we have and it takes a long time. Even under-----

When Ms Duffy says it takes a long time, does she mean it takes a long time to engage or to get that initial contact?

It takes a long time to get them in. Parents are finding that very difficult. Even in relation to AIM level 5, where we are applying for equipment for children with additional needs, which is fantastic to have, it takes ages. It takes months and months to get that equipment and in the meantime, we are balancing a child who may not be able to walk or who has to have a special chair. We might be trying to get proper straps or something like that and it can take three or four months for them to arrive at the service. There are big delays in things like that as well.

As I said previously, a reduction in ratios is needed. The ratio of 1:11 in an ECCE room is far too high for the needs we are experiencing now. It is not just children with additional needs or a diagnosis; it is children with challenging behaviour and children who are struggling at home, who might be in foster care or who come from families who are struggling, who are on the poverty line. With the increase in the cost of living, people are struggling and we need funding to have extra staff to support these families and children.

There is one anomaly we have noticed over the years, which has come up with children under the national childcare scheme, NCS, who are fully sponsored. In that context, it may be children are in foster care. There is a range of circumstances that lead children to be sponsored. There is a cap on the subsidy that will be paid for the place for those children and, depending on where in the country a service is or what its fee is, the NCS cap might not meet the service fee. Then services are being asked to take children when the State is paying below the rate of their service fees. That puts a child who is already at a disadvantage at a further disadvantage in accessing a place, when there is already enormous pressure for places.

I have a few quick points on that. Reference in the early years action plan under the programme for Government has been referenced by colleagues. The expansion of AIM is key. That is already there as a proposal. We absolutely welcome Equal Start and its aspirations. A larger pot of funding, but more flexibility in where that funding can be applied, is needed. We would not necessarily apply it as rigidly as it currently has to be applied. That would give us the ability to meet the more local needs and wraparound bits. My last point relates to the State-led programme. There is some inflexibility in the way it is currently set up. Our conversations have been about the creation of surplus, as it is seen, what that money can be used for and seeing family support as a valid activity alongside the pure early learning and care that is going on in the room. The family support element needs to be seen as equally important as the care happening in the room, and the flexibility needs to be recognised in that programme in new communities where there are likely to be additional needs.

Go raibh maith agat.

I want to talk about the bia blasta programme in a minute, but before that I will look at the expansion of AIM. It needs to go to pre-ECCE, but are there any other expansions? It expanded this year past ECCE hours and people could have it for the day, but are other expansions needed or is it just to younger children?

Expansion into school-age childcare is definitely needed.

Again, it is about broadening the descriptions of colleagues' roles. Funding needs to match the workforce development plan. Family liaison officers and pedagogical leadership are all part of being able to run a quality service. We have to hire those people without funding because otherwise we would not be delivering quality, but they need to be acknowledged. There is a reason they are in the plan.

We heard, when we did our module on child poverty, about the success of the hot school meals with that being the only hot meal of the day for some children. Do the witnesses' settings participate in the bia blasta programme, which started in 2025? Do they have feedback on it? If they are not participating, what are the barriers?

We participate in the bia blasta programme. It was very welcome to us, but we have been using that model for the past 20 years. We have always fed the children hot meals. We provide all the food in Lios na nÓg. Given the area we are in, it is probably the only hot meal some of the children get. It is fantastic we can do that, but it is not enough money. More investment in it is definitely needed.

We currently have it in one of our services. For those families, it is the only hot meal some of the children get so the funding is definitely welcome, but it does not cover anywhere near the cost.

If it was open to Ms Murphy's service, would she be open to using it?

We are already providing a hot meal anyway. It would certainly be a measure that would assist with the overall viability of the service, if funding were there for it. However, it is something we do habitually anyway as full day-care services across the board.

Go raibh maith agat. I will allow two minutes each for any member who wants a third round and we will then allow our witnesses to make their closing statements.

I want to mention two other things. Bear with me on this. If all core funding was scrapped and all the money - and it is significant - was used and whatever is additional - I am not sure what the gap would be - to solely pay the wages, would that be manageable for providers, that is, if the State were to take on the entire wage and the providers were to do the rest? That is my first question.

The level of income under the NCS is dependent on attendance and attendance can be difficult, as was referenced already. Providers want to have attendance because they are based in an area where there is a waiting list or other children could use the place. How do providers get around that? I know it is about flexibility, but could anyone say what that flexibility would look like?

I can take the first question about the core funding. Core funding is only 20% of the income and 20% of the income would not cover the wage bill. It would need to be significantly increased.

I mean for the State to take on the entire wages and terms and conditions and then providers would not get core funding. Could providers manage the rest, if all the expenditure on wages and terms and conditions were entirely covered?

I can only model this on our provision. We modelled out that the State would take on year one of a wage scale - that scale moves over time. The Government would completely take over year one of the wage scale and fees would drop to €400 for parents. That looked like the balance between the two. It would actually be €200, that is €200 from the State, if it were to pay the €200 it plans to and there would be a top-up of €200, so the gap would be about €400. That would be manageable.

We get the idea that the funding structure does not work and unless that and the pay rates are dealt with, we will go nowhere. However, additional supports are needed. What exactly do we need? We are talking about an expansion of AIM. I am sure even in the service being provided at the moment, it is insufficient. Then there are wider elements of supports and there may even be a need for wider interaction with other agencies putting the correct support framework around a family or child.

I do think that. It is not just in early years settings that we are having issues with that. That needs to be looked at and we need to work hand-in-hand along those lines. It is a big issue outside early years care as well.

That is the issue of therapies and anything else.

What is the witnesses' relationship like with other agencies, such as Tusla? I do not mean necessarily from a nuclear point of view. Sometimes parents worry when we talk about it. I just mean the additional supports that may be needed by certain families.

We are very tied in to what was originally the genesis programme. I spoke earlier a little about classroom Dina and such things. We are also able to run partner programmes in relation to that and there is a big need for partner programmes across the board. It is hard to get parents into them, but if they were to be run in services, it might help. I am sure others probably also find there is a big need for partner programmes.

We opened a school-age childcare service in June and it is 95% fully sponsored children, so we have a lot of demand in that service for extra supports. We are dealing directly with social workers on a daily basis, but if there were cohesive thinking on that, social workers could be on site serving children and helping us. They could let staff know what else they could do to support in those areas and additional supports could be discussed together. Meitheal programmes are great, but they do not always work. If social workers were on site all the time or could be there on a regular basis, that would help. Also, Tusla needs more staff. We are keeping those cracks together. Children fall through the system if we are not there and that is worrying.

We will move to closing remarks. I will call the witnesses in the order they made their opening statements and ask that they confine themselves to approximately two minutes each.

Therein lies the challenge. I will start with a comment on staffing. Colleagues have strongly articulated the various elements of that, including further reflection on terms and conditions and thinking about progression. We support the call for an apprenticeship model that has been articulated. That could be an element of transformation within our staffing.

The State investment in early learning and care has been significant. Core funding has been transformative in many respects. However, to fully work through the direction on this there is a requirement for more funding to bring Equal Start and AIM to where they need to be. Alongside that is the issue of how funding is considered on the ground and the bureaucracy and burden put in place.

On Deputy Ó Murchú's question about where we go from here, ultimately, we need a more open and honest conversation across the sector about what our destination is. We welcome the start of a discussion on State-led childcare and public provision. We would not start from where we are, but we have to. What is our vision for that pure separation of a private, commercial sector and a community sector? There is a conversation in between about the model of provision. It will be no surprise that our sense is that it needs to be driven more as a social enterprise. There needs to be more comfort with the idea of profit, but with purpose. There needs to be an element of profit made to be sustainable. There needs to be an element of profit in place to bring about further development and meet the need for more places. Our parting shot is to ask where we are going and how we get there.

There have been fantastic and welcome changes in the past number of years. We urge that these to continue. The list of challenges we are facing is a lot greater. SIPTU did a survey on early years professionals. Some 83% of respondents said they would not recommend a job in early years to friends or family. That is where we are. We are struggling so much with recruitment. You could go on and on with those figures, but it is not just looking at opening places. It is about having places for families to send their children. It is about looking at the proper workforce needed in those services. The smaller classrooms and intervention units in Equal Start and Bia Blasta should be in all State preschools. It should not be about where you are located or where you live. There are estates being built now and council houses going into estates. It is not about your address any more. It is across the board. Children should have exactly the same in any service they attend. The biggest thing for us is the major investment. Our fees, staff and behavioural issues and the need for more early years can be solved with major investment into the sector. There are conversations being had so the point gets across. People on the ground are able to tell us exactly what it is like. Whatever happens is going to shape the future of our children and our country, so let us invest in what we need to have for the future.

From what we have heard today, it is clear that there needs to be a both a short- and a long-term approach taken to childcare issues. I will make a couple of points on matters that need to be dealt with urgently in the short term in order that we will be in a position to have a more sustainable sector in the long term. The inequity or inequality in the core funding has not really been focused on so much. We have a lot of services where, because they were in place prior to the introduction of core funding, they are operating on a lower fee than the service that has opened up next door. Such a service can open today at a higher fee, with the cost base being the same. This is causing a lot of frustration and a feeling of unfairness among providers. If we want engagement and progression in the sector, we have to have people feeling like the sector is at least engaging with them on a fair and even playing field.

In terms of creating capacity, when 4,400 providers, which is the majority, are already there and existing services have rooms and capacity closed due to staff shortages, looking purely at building on greenfield sites defies common sense. We have to solve the problem we have and make sure the capacity we have is open and delivering services every day before we go putting it into the long term. I am not saying we should not do both. We need to do both, but we need to make sure the short-term problems are solved by bringing more staff into the sector.

In that sense, the need for additional pay and an apprenticeship programme to attract people into the services and keep them in longer term is absolutely essential. We cannot have community engagement and all of the things we want if we do not have the people in the first place. The first issue we have to deal with is getting more people into crèches, early learning and school age services daily.

On speedy resolution, there are so many private providers eager to expand, grow and deliver the goal the State ultimately wants to achieve, which is the creation of more childcare places. To take a single State-led approach would be to ignore a very valuable resource, which is the private provider embedded in the community it is operating in, and which has the capacity and push to do it. However, we need support to do it. There are a couple of different approaches we need to take to get there as quickly as possible.

This is probably close to those issues. The two biggest problems within the sector are affordability and accessibility. If we made childcare €200 in the morning as all parties want, people would not be able to access it. Why would they not be able to access it? They would not be able to access it because there are not enough places and there are not enough places because there are not enough colleagues. Colleagues are at the heart of the issues in this sector. Making sure that we move towards a proper pay scale over the coming 12 months is the biggest ask. We need to have short-term solutions in between. When we look at the amount of funding that needs to be brought into the sector to do it we continually hear soundbites about the extraordinary investment in the sector without talking about the fact that the real investment in the sector has only been in core funding. The affordable childcare scheme, although incredibly welcome because it allows all children to access childcare, is not new investment. It is just a difference in who the payer is. We were receiving this money from parents previously. We are now receiving it from the State. It is not new money into the sector. The only new money in the sector is in core funding. In order o get the sector to where it needs to be, that needs to grow exponentially to get us where we want to be. We have the bones of a sector that could be stand-out good. Ireland could stand out worldwide with regard to what we do, but we need to quickly put money where it needs to go, to get it where it needs to be.

Today's engagement has been really productive. I acknowledge that I have met many of the witnesses before and that my colleagues have as well. I know the witnesses passion to improve early learning and childcare in Ireland goes beyond the work they do in their services and that they have done today. I thank them for their continued engagement.