Childcare: Motion Seanad Éireann — 2026-09-23 ============================================================ Alice-Mary Higgins (IND), National University of Ireland I thank the Fianna Fáil Senators for bringing forward this topic. Like many others, we are navigating another start of term and all of the paperwork that goes with that. There is nothing more important than childcare, what it does and the foundation it provides for our children. I want to highlight some of the choices we still have and the potential new models we could use. The Minister has said that the question is no longer whether the State should be playing a major role in supporting early learning and childcare but how it should do so. Within the motion, there are really concrete measures that look for that more active State involvement. One of the calls relates to co-location with our educational infrastructure, including our primary school infrastructure, and the building or purchasing of State-owned facilities. Publicly delivered and developed childcare where it is needed, particularly in areas of high-density and rural areas, is part of it. That is the kind of thing we mean when we talk about the role of the State in delivering the foundations for our children through early years education, which is also absolutely crucial social infrastructure. While I am sure the Minister is well aware of them, I will highlight and draw the Minister's attention to some of the proposals put forward by SIPTU in its roadmap. I hosted a SIPTU event on its roadmap for early years affordability before the summer. As the Minister will be aware, it has put forward proposals that aim to address the fact that, even with the schemes we have, which are very welcome, there can be a little bit of a gap. Things can fall between the cracks. An administrative burden can also fall on families and facilities in managing these things. Like many of us, I have navigated this system myself, determining which hours fall under the ECCE scheme, which fall under the different other programmes, the number of hours for which the child is enrolled and at which times of the day. The State is effectively giving a massive subsidy to make childcare possible. What SIPTU has put forward is the idea that it may take a different form. If we look at the actual breakdown of expenditure on provision of childcare, 69% is employee compensation. Rather than the plethora of schemes and subsidies that individual families have to navigate their access to and facilities, SIPTU put forward that we could look to the State taking on that part of the piece. SIPTU estimates that if the State was delivering and managing the employment payments in crèches, that would bring crèche fees down to €255 per week. We would be within reach of the goal of €200 that we have all heard about, which is referenced in the motion. While that would be an increase in what the State is currently spending, it would not necessarily be an insurmountable increase. They point to this scheme as an idea of almost both simplifying and delivering affordability, with affordability as the first goal or benefit, but with the secondary benefit of supporting the other agenda the Minister spoke out in terms of professionalisation and supporting consistency of employment and opportunities for progress in the sector. If the State were to be effectively the payroll manager, it would move to a point in terms of retention, which we know is a massive issue. Anybody knows about the turnover of staff that is happening in many crèches, which is so difficult and often kind of distressing because the relationships that are formed are so fundamental with caregivers. It is kind of a 1:2 or 1:3 relationship at that point. We need to have a situation where anybody working in the childcare sector knows that they are going to be paid properly by the State, that there will be progression opportunities, that they will be paid the same whether they are working in an area of disadvantage or working in an area of comparative advantage and that there will be an equality of payment and a core payment of some sort. I appreciate the important work of the EROs and the attempts to raise the bar and raise the standards, but this may be an opportunity to have the State lead on that. I am just putting that out there. It is SIPTU's roadmap. It is an interesting proposal. It is great that we have all come to certain collective views in relation to the importance of a role for the State, the importance of this being an area of public investment, the importance of this idea being a foundation and the idea of affordability and decent pay and conditions being crucial to the delivery of that. SIPTU's model is something that contributes to those shared goals and should be considered. I urge the Minister to take it on board. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-09-23/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:49+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-09-23