Main feature image: Elaine Dunne, National Chairperson of the Federation of Early Childhood Providers
Twenty-eight childcare services throughout the country have, in the past two weeks given notice of closure to parents. The main reasons given were lack of funding and staffing issues.
This is in addition to the over 130 independent childcare closures in the year since March 2023, due to underfunding, the Federation of Early Childhood Providers (FECP) reports. Most providers blame the Government’s controversial Core Funding model, introduced in 2022 by Minister O'Gorman. It exerts unnecessary demands on childcare owners, with funding that comes nowhere near the cost of rising inflation, FECP members claim.
The latest FECP members poll indicates 39% are set to walk away from the country’s public childcare scheme completely, with most of those expecting to close their business indefinitely.
The publication of ‘United We Stand’, a compilation of hundreds of representative letters to the Department of Children, from FECP members, the childcare body is insisting ‘enough is enough’. The Minister’s ‘easy false promises’ are insulting to an Early Years’ sector that is teetering on the brink of collapse, they say.
Frustration and anger pours from the letters of childcare business owners across Ireland, as they detail a litany of inconsistencies, unworkable Department demands, insufficient funds for State childcare services, and unreasonable regulation; all leaving Ireland’s Early Learning and Care (ELC) and School Age Childcare (SAC) sector in a ‘dire state’.
Literally, hundreds of childcare owners are unable to draw a salary from their own businesses, the FECP maintains, on account of rising costs and administration, and insufficient funding.
The book of letters, ‘United We Stand’, will be presented to media, Government officials and the Department of Children this week, in a unified plea from a sector at breaking point.
“Women comprise 98% of the sector, but endure incomparable hardships, despite nurturing the minds of the country’s youngest citizens, amid a relentless cycle of suffocating bureaucratic constraints”, the publication preface reads.
Bullied
Childcare providers, many grappling with chronic fatigue, feel bullied. They complain of being overregulated, answerable to multiple agencies that do not communicate effectively, and constrained by financial pressures that compromise the quality of care. Insufficient funding, particularly for State programmes, like ECCE, threatens the viability of services, with closures on a weekly basis, due to an inadequate funding model and rising operational costs.
Among the onerous administrative requirements highlighted in the sector is the new requirement to provide two sets of accounts.
“With our fees frozen at 2017 levels, requirements for staff wages to increase, and now demands for our accounts to be verified by an accountant, adding more cost and administration, I have just had enough,” one crèche owner writes.
An issue highlighted repeatedly by providers is the lack of recognition and respect from Government and the Department of Children. Providers feel undervalued and disrespected, with a prevailing sentiment that bureaucratic demands severely impact the needs of children.
The absence of comprehensive training and guidance from County Childcare Committees (CCCs) exacerbates the challenges, service providers say, as does ‘a concerning trend of unilateral decision-making and inadequate communication from relevant authorities, including the Department of Children and Pobal’, a government agency tasked with supporting social inclusion and community development.
Childcare workers are upskilling themselves to degree level, and beyond, only to reach a severely low ceiling in wages, due to lack of funding, they say. With fee freezes, insisted on by the Core Funding model, providers are unable to charge a rate that would allow them drive better quality careers and higher wages.
The irony is that small childcare services, where children thrive, are being squeezed out, Elaine Dunne, National Chairperson of the Federation of Early Childhood Providers (FECP) says.
“And, here we have Minister O'Gorman, from a Green Party that eschews ‘easy false promises’ playing to the electorate gallery on how parents will enjoy lower childcare costs. The fact that the Minister is, at the same time, screwing the sector into the ground and causing mass closures, does not equate with prices coming down.”
With a membership of more than 1,400 early years services, the FECP is an advocate for both parents and childcare workers. The group, founded in 2019 by Elaine Dunne, a Dublin childcare provider, challenges what is seen as the grinding down of the sector by successive inefficient State administrations.
Numerous policy documents, Government submissions, and meetings with the Department of Children to suggest solutions, and attempt to engage on workable and fair policies, have fallen on deaf ears, the FECP claims.
