Ensuring everyone has the best start in life.
I have always believed that early years care and education are vital public goods that must be guaranteed by the state – providing the best service possible, readily accessible to everyone, and equally. Fundamentally, it must offer every child in Ireland an equal start in life to ensure better outcomes in the future. The Greens were the first party to make this public vision for early years a reality.
Over the last four years, we have transformed the early years sector in Ireland. Thanks to the largest-ever year-on-year increase in investment, the state has been able to play a much stronger role in the delivery of this essential public good. We have halved average costs for parents, stabilised the outlook for providers, and agreed the first-ever pay deal for employees We expanded the National Childcare Scheme to include childminders and introduced Equal Start, a new DEIS-inspired model of support for children experiencing disadvantage. We’ve doubled investment in the sector from €600 million to €1.2 billion.
This has transformed the landscape for the better, and we are only getting started.
We can now move towards a new public model of early years education. Central to this are three core commitments to be delivered within the next five years:
Guaranteeing access to early years education for every child, regardless of where they live. We will give every child a legal right to early years education by placing access to two years of Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) on a statutory footing.
Directing the state to provide early years education and care directly. Under this model, the state will work alongside existing private providers, focusing initially on filling critical gaps in provision across the country. New publicly delivered services will provide ECCE along with full-time, part-time, and after-school care.
Ensuring that early years professionals are valued and recognised for their extraordinary work through a process to increase pay and improve working conditions.
A New Public Model
Our children are at the core of our communities. Their future is the future of our country and our planet. We have a responsibility to give them the best possible chance to thrive, grow, and build families and communities of their own. We will:
Expand the Equal Start program I introduced, delivering early years support to children experiencing disadvantage, including Traveller and Roma children, and children from refugee backgrounds.
Increase hours under the Access and Inclusion Model (AIM) to ensure all children with disabilities can access early years education.
In addition to providing a new public model and expanding existing schemes to support disadvantaged children and children with disabilities, the Green Party recognizes the need to further reduce cost pressures on parents, regardless of how and where they source childcare.
Introduce a single national fee structure for early years education, guaranteeing fees at low, accessible levels set by the state.
Build on the success of the National Childcare Scheme, ensuring that the state increases its financial assistance to parents – through both universal and income-assessed supports
Through these combined measures
Early years education and care will be provided free of charge to families on lower incomes.
Beyond this, families will be charged no more than €200 per child, per month. This will be implemented through phased reductions, commensurate with increased year-on-year investment.
Reintroduce a mid-year access point to ECCE to ensure that all children can benefit from a full two years of the program.
Work with childminders to implement the Childminding Action Plan in a way that increases the number of registered childminders and allows parents using their services to benefit from the National Childcare Scheme.
Availability
Support the delivery of a public model of early years education and care by mandating and resourcing the national network of Education and Training Boards to develop childcare facilities.
Increase capital funding for early learning and childcare to support private, community, and public operators. This will include a new start-up fund for early years services to get off the ground.
Place a legal obligation on primary schools, regardless of patronage, to make rooms available for after-school care and provide the necessary support to facilitate this.
Ensure that existing regulations requiring the development of childcare facilities in housing developments are enforced.
Supporting Our Early Years Professionals
Enhance pay and improve working conditions for early years professionals and advance the process of aligning their pay scales to other state educators.
Continue to increase provision for Core Funding, copper-fastening the state’s role as the primary funder of early years education.
Ensure the current process to simplify the administrative burden on providers is completed and that recommendations are implemented.