Government should shoulder payroll costs in childcare sector, Oireachtas committee told

Irish Examiner

5 hours ago

The Government should take on the payroll costs of childcare providers and make early years educators public sector workers as part of essential reform to the system, an Oireachtas committee has heard.
Children's Rights Alliance CEO Tanya Ward told TDs and Senators on the Oireachtas Children's Committee that it could be a 'groundbreaking move'.
She said that one in four early years educators are leaving the sector and the main issue is the 'lack of parity of esteem' with the likes of primary school teachers.
'They all go in with the same aspirations, but the primary school teachers will stay in that area of education,' she said.
'And the early years educators won't because they can't live on the wages and salaries. And then any move forward towards affordability, a move towards a public model, the first thing has to be recognition and pay and conditions for the staff working in the services.'
In a wide-ranging hearing, the Children's Rights Alliance also fielded questions around the safety of kids online and data on child poverty.
Online safety
Describing the availability of pornography as a 'massive issue', Ms Ward said the younger a child is when they come into contact with violent pornography, the more damaging it is.
'We are hearing, as you would know, from the rape crisis centers,' she said. 'They are saying it seems to be a feature in some of the sexual assaults that are happening for teenagers. And some of those teenagers present as adults when they come looking for treatment.
'It should be the case that no child should arrive and land on a pornography site, and we need to put the onus actually on the provider to ensure they don't have children accessing the site.'
Child poverty
She also said that statistics have shown that over 100,000 children in Ireland are living in consistent poverty, 'feeling the grind of deep poverty and the isolation of social exclusion day in, day out'.
This has been exacerbated by the housing crisis, leaving thousands of children living day-to-day in emergency accommodation. As well as that, children are living in overcrowded accommodation which is impacting their education and growth.
On Monday, Taoiseach Micheál Martin told the National Economic Dialogue that recent increases in the number of children living in poverty must become a 'temporary spike, out of line with the overall trend'.
'Therefore, for Budget 2026, I have asked my ministerial colleagues to plan and come forward with measures that will really make the difference to the most vulnerable families and children,' he said.