A chairde,
I welcome the opportunity to come here today and discuss my work in the
Department of Children and Youth Affairs and look forward to hearing your
views and input.
As you will be aware my remarks are timely coming a week after the
announcement of Budget 2017 and just as the long overdue public, political
and media debate on childcare is finally underway.
I want to share a vision for a future which has high quality, accessible
and affordable childcare policies with vibrant youth services, best
practice assistance for young people with difficulties and above all for an
inclusive future that values every child for who they are.
Through listening to children and affording them the freedom, respect and
love they deserve, we can build a caring, engaged, flourishing society from
the ground up.
In the Budget last week I was pleased to secure a 15% increase in funding
for services to support children, young people and families. Additional
funding of €173m brought the total funding of my Department to over €1.3Bn
– a hugely significant investment that has grown even through adversity,
and is helping to create a fundamentally different approach to how the
State engages with its children and young people.
This funding will allow us to start a radical new approach to childcare,
extra community youth services across the country and better funded
supports for young people and families who need it most.
Children deserve to be free of fear, free of poverty and deprivation and to
feel safe and valued at home, in childcare and in society as a whole. I
look forward to continuing my work with children, young people, parents and
frontline services to ensure the money which has been secured in the Budget
will be used to deliver the best possible outcomes for all.
Let me turn now to childcare.
A major policy priority for me is the development of a new Single
Affordable Childcare Scheme.
This will replace existing childcare subsidisation schemes- excluding the
free pre-school scheme- with a single, streamlined scheme from September
2017. That’s an ambitious timetable, and a number of strands of development
will have to be progressed in parallel if it is to be met – a team of
officials are working on the details as we speak, and I hope to present
more information in the coming weeks.
For now, I can say that this new scheme is a major step in making quality
childcare more affordable, and will enable both universal and targeted
subsidies for parents towards their childcare costs.
Under the new Single Affordable Childcare Scheme, parents will qualify for
a targeted subsidy based on their net income.
I do not want to pre-empt the input of Senators but I would like clear up
some mis-information which has entered the debate – and unfortunately has
become part of the discourse.
At the outset let me be clear the policy proposals for the new scheme were
always based on net income.
There a number of reasons for this:
Firstly, a net income approach better provides for a fair and reasonable
measure of the resources available to a family, as well as ensuring an
equitable approach to assessment across incomes which are subject to
taxation and incomes which are largely non-taxable.
Basing the assessment on net income should also reduce the risk of high
effective marginal tax rates as subsidies are withdrawn in line with
increasing income. As such, the approach is supportive of equity and
labour market activation policy objectives and should ensure that the
scheme is helpful to working families on low to moderate incomes,
prioritising those on the lowest incomes, which I hope will be particularly
effective for the children of lone parents, and those children living in
households below or close to the poverty line.
Subsidies will be available for children aged from 6 months up to 15 years
and will meet families’ full-time and part-time childcare needs, including
outside of school hours and during school holiday time.
International research confirms that access to high quality and affordable
childcare is particularly important and beneficial for children from lower
income families. Firstly, employment is the best route out of poverty, and
affordable childcare supports parents in lower-income families to access
the labour market.
According to data from the Central Statistics Office, 19% of people in
jobless households are in consistent poverty, compared to 8% of those in
households with one person working and just 0.5% of those in households
with two people working.
I also want to be clear on this quality childcare supports child
development, and this benefit is greater for children from disadvantaged
backgrounds.
That is why I have ensured that the overwhelming majority of funding
available under the Single Affordable Childcare Scheme will be targeted at
lower income families, with subsidy of approximately €8,000 a year
available at the highest rate, based on the maximum of 40-hours childcare a
week.
This will help families to overcome disadvantage and contribute to a
reduction in child poverty. Under the initial terms of the scheme,
households earning up to €47,500 net income will be able to avail of
subsidised childcare. I hope that future budgets will enable me increase
this threshold year on year
At the same time, I am aware that childcare is at its most expensive for
children under three years of age. That is why funding of €7m has been made
available to provide a universal subsidy for children in that age range
availing of formal childcare.
From September 2017 a universal subsidy of up to €80 per month will be
provided towards childcare costs. This equates to over €900 per annum for
parents working full time and will be paid pro-rata.
The Programme for Government commits to “the introduction of a robust model
for subsidised high quality childcare for children aged 9- 36 months”. At
present, paid maternity leave in Ireland extends to 26 weeks or about six
months, although the Programme for Government commits to further increasing
paid parental leave in the first year of life.
In line with current leave entitlements, the Affordable Childcare Scheme
will be available from six months of age. This approach recognises that
the cost of childcare can push many parents out of the labour market when
paid leave ends. Indeed, the gap between the end of paid leave and the
start of an entitlement to early care and education is an international
indicator used to examine national policies in this area.
This measure does not amount to discrimination against stay at home parents
– rather it aims to make childcare more affordable for all families.
The Government directly supports stay at home parents through the home-care
tax credit which has been increased to €1,100 a year, and I support an
increase in the earnings threshold for this.
In 2017, the expected number of children benefitting from the new Single
Affordable Childcare scheme is estimated at 79,000. This includes 25,000
children who will benefit from the universal subsidy.
An estimated 54,000 children will benefit from the targeted subsidies,
including 31,500 children who already receive support under the current
targeted schemes and 22,500 new beneficiaries.
The scheme will be open to all childcare providers who are registered with
Tusla initially, including both centre-based childcare providers (e.g.
crèches, preschools and daycare centres) and child-minders.
Currently only a small percentage of child-minders are registered and only
a portion are eligible to register I am currently working with Childminding
Ireland to explore how childminding services can be quality assured in
order to access State funding under this scheme. Options to be explored
will include a system of non-statutory quality assurance, possibly leading
to statutory registration for a wider group of childminders in the medium
to long term.
The issue of capacity in the childcare sector is complex- supply can depend
on demand as well as costs – including rents and staff wages, which need to
be set at realistic levels that value the work of childcare professionals.
Demand for childcare in turn depends on parental choice, among other
factors. My Department has experience in assisting the sector with
successful expansion going back to its foundation, and before with the
capital grants of the early 2000s that produced some excellent facilities
currently in daily use.
This past year we focused on the expansion of the free pre-school scheme,
which is now underway - my Department projects that the expanded Early
Childhood Care and Education or ECCE scheme will have a peak enrolment of
127,000 children in the April-June session in 2017. This is an increase of
60,000 children from the pre-expansion volume.
Again let me re-assure Senators that despite some media commentary the
timeline on this was not missed. This measure was announced in Budget 2016
by Senator James Reilly and delivered this September, on schedule.
As of this week, I understand that there are more than 86,000 children
registered in ECCE services, a record number. It is too easy to always move
to the next development; but it is right that I should acknowledge the
tireless work of my predecessor, who did so much under very difficult
circumstances.
Thanks to this expansion, parents will now benefit from an average of 61
weeks of free pre-school, saving an average of €4000 on their childcare
costs for each eligible child. Budget 2017 also enables full roll out of
the Access and Inclusion Model (AIM) to support children with disabilities
attend mainstream pre-schools.
In anticipation of the increased demand for places in the Early Childhood
Care and Education Scheme for 2016/17, I introduced a number of measures to
assist Early Years providers and ensure sufficient capacity – for example I
provided a €2.5m increase in capital funding for Early Years services
seeking to increase capacity, making available a total of €6.5m in 2016 and
allowing all applications that met the criteria for grant funding to be
approved. This capital scheme has already provided several thousand new
places, and this number will increase as works are completed.
Supply of childcare also depends on the availability of qualified staff,
and sufficient funding to pay them a fair wage. I am providing targeted
Learner Funds to enable childcare workers to attain recognised
qualifications and I have widened access to ECCE Higher Capitation for the
2016/17 preschool year. That capitation rate is now set at €75 per child
per week, with standard capitation set at €64.50 per child, per week –
rates that have been restored after cuts in recent years.
My Department has over the past months worked closely with Childcare
Committees Ireland to analyse demand for places on a geographic basis, to
identify any shortages in provision, and to work intensively with services
in areas where shortfalls might have been expected to occur.
The on-going monitoring of trends in relation to capacity in the sector in
advance of September 2017 will help the Department to develop policy
measures that may be required in order to encourage the provision of
additional capacity within the sector. Provision was made in Budget 2017
for capital funding for the Early Years Sector of €4.5m, and I am currently
considering the most effective use of this funding. I will welcome views
from Senators in this regard.
At the outset I welcomed that the long overdue national conversation on
early years was finally underway – but if we are to transform one of the
most expensive childcare systems in the world into one of the best it is
important that the debate is based on evidence, facts and research.
Emotive language and the twisting of international research has no place in
this discussion.
It is only by adopting a respectful approach that we can best meet the
needs of children, young people and families – and in particular improve
the lives of the 220,000 who are today at risk of poverty.
I have focused my remarks today on the childcare sector. I want to conclude
by taking a moment to mention some other areas of work – I attach a very
high priority to the work of Tusla – the Child and Family Agency. Tusla
provides essential services to some of the most vulnerable children and
families in our society. Budget 2017 provided Tusla with the necessary
additional resources – some €37m - to continue with its ambitious programme
of reform of services and to build an effective and responsive child
protection and welfare system.
In addition later this week I will outline details of an extra €5.5 million
for youth projects across the country.
There is also increased funding to fulfil operational roles and statutory
duties of the Office of the Ombudsman for Children and the Adoption
Authority of Ireland
I look forward to hearing your contributions and indeed using them to help
inform the future direction of services to support children, young people
and families.
Thank you all for listening and I look forward to your contributions.