The pandemic and Ireland’s failed childcare system
by Niamh McDonald
Childcare in Ireland was in crisis prior to Covid-19, and the pandemic has exacerbated the pre-existing structural inequalities and deficits. This article looks at childcare prior to Covid-19, how it’s coping under the pandemic, and what alternatives exist to the current market-driven system in place.
Article originally published in Issue 4 of Rupture, Ireland’s eco-socialist quarterly, buy the print issue:
I interviewed Ann-Marie, a supervisor in community childcare in an early childhood education setting prior to Covid-19 (February 2020), just before the hugely successful strike and mobilization by childcare professionals. More recently, I caught up with Ann-Marie on how her service has managed throughout the Covid-19 crisis.
The childcare crisis prior to Covid-19
Childcare and early childhood education, besides being essential to the running of an economy, is the fundamental building block that can determine a child’s progress into adulthood, not only in terms of education but holistically as an individual in society. The nurturing care and love a child receives in those early years often determines whether that person can truly achieve their full potential as an adult. The importance placed on how early childhood education and care is structured, funded, and accessed reflects the importance placed on what type of society is being produced and reproduced, and who is important within it.
In Ireland’s case, the facts make for dim reading: early childhood education and care is chronically underfunded. Ireland spends only 0.1% of its GDP compared to the OECD average of between 0.5-0.8%, [1] and in the main, Ireland relies on private provision to run the sector. The Eurydice 2019 Report on Early Childhood Education and Care in Europe [2] states that Ireland has no limits placed on the fees that private childcare organisations can charge, which creates some of the highest childcare costs in Europe. Irish average monthly childcare fees are €771. Since there are no caps on fees, any government subsidy just results in increased providers’ fees, meaning families receive none of the benefits. Effectively, it becomes a business subsidy.
The latest funding iteration is the National Childcare Scheme (NCS). While being heralded as creating a new accessible childcare system, organisations such as Single Parent Acting for the Rights of their Kids (SPARK) [3], and the Association of Childcare Professionals [4] warned that this system, like the others that preceded it, will exclude the most marginal and vulnerable groups – for example, working lone parents – who could see childcare costs rise under the scheme and find themselves pushed out of the labour market and deeper into poverty.
In February 2020, Ann-Marie described the Irish childcare service: “The early years professionals in the community and private sectors, for years have been under huge pressure. They are not treated as professionals, and are expected to support the rest of the country by looking after and educating the children; for children with additional needs; for afterschool clubs; for everybody. For all these years we have got very little extra funding, we’ve got more people coming and assessing us, making sure we are doing our jobs. We have, I think, eight different government bodies that come in at the drop of a hat to see what we are doing and to make sure we are doing everything right. And that is fine, we are all about good governance and transparency but it’s just constant. Every couple of years funding gets changed, and we never know from one year to the next year if we can be sustainable and continue to run the community service that we run. It is not good, so, we are middle of the road paid, compared to the girls that are on ten-euro-something an hour but it’s below the living wage and it’s not good enough.”
Childcare Professionals are chronically underpaid and undervalued. Social Justice Ireland [5] reports that childcare professionals are often on minimum wages, creating a consistent pattern of high staff turnovers, which in turn affects the quality of service provision. The SIPTU “Bigstart” campaign [6] to organise and mobilise childcare professionals is a good beginning, and from the thousands of childcare professionals that mobilised on 5 February 2020, the sector has professionals who are committed to providing a good quality service for children and families while also demanding a living wage.
Covid-19 and the Childcare sector
Within a couple of weeks of the initial lockdown, it became apparent that the childcare system would not survive without government funding. According to the report, Dealing with the Pandemic report from Early childhood Ireland (ECI) 2020, [7] the pre-existing crisis in the childcare system created uncertainty about its future under lockdown and it, therefore, needed government funding to ensure it could reopen.
The government effectively paid the wage bill of the entire sector, keeping all of the workers in employment, while services could access 15% of staff weekly gross pay to cover the costs of overheads while closed. This prevented services having to charge parents the usual monthly fees and guaranteed places would still be available to families when society reopened. Efforts by the government to create a childcare system for frontline workers during the first lockdown failed due to low uptake, a lack of insurance cover, concerns about virus transmission, difficulties in meeting employer responsibilities in relation to breaks and rest periods, and concerns about a lack of protection for staff working alone.
Covid-19 policies after the first lockdown categorised childcare as an essential service, remaining open under level 5, which it has with some restrictions. Re-opening has been costly and stressful, and with often unclear policies for providers. ECI [8] reported reduced hours in services and increased costs due to sanitisation and the need for extra staff. A range of different funding streams have been put in place by the government, but they come with pre-conditions, bureaucracy and stress.
Ann-Marie, in May 2021, says “There have been huge changes to the service due to Covid-19. We re-opened in July, as requested, to the most vulnerable families and for children of front-line workers. It was great to be back providing a vital service. We had to reduce our hours for the children to ensure safety due to Covid. We received a grant from Pobal of a few thousand euros to re-open, but that is long gone. We order in PPE, cleaning and sterilising every week. It all costs a fortune, but we must keep Covid out. The early years educators have been amazing, working throughout in difficult stressful situations. They are so dedicated and always put the children and families first. All of our children are vulnerable, particularly during a pandemic. We have children whose parents have mental health issues, anxiety, stress, depression, drug and alcohol issues, homelessness, and overcrowded accommodation. It’s been really hard for them particularly during lockdowns.”
The alternative
I asked Ann-Marie what a fully publicly funded service would mean to her. “We really need core funding to ensure sustainability. The funding is changed regularly, but it is not ideal for community settings. It makes it very difficult to make long-term plans and financial decisions when we don't know what we will receive from one year to the next. Ensuring sustainability means we can provide a quality, safe, educational service for the children in this community. Many of these children are already disadvantaged, so they require additional supports to help their learning, development and help them reach their full potential.”
A fully publicly funded sustainable service would have removed many of the obstacles to reopening and the threat of possible closures during the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis. We should now be demanding at a minimum:
The Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) scheme needs to begin at two years of age and hours doubled from 15 per week to 30 per week available twelve months of the year.
An increase for each child’s capitation grant for accessing crèches; no parent should pay more than thirty percent of the overall cost.
A massive increase in investment: a minimum one percent of our overall GDP is needed to create a fully functioning national childcare system.
An increase in financial supports to lone parents and migrant parents who are most vulnerable to poverty and isolation.
A focus by government needs to be placed on the creation of public crèche facilities in local communities. Currently, 73% of crèches are private and 27% are public. Not all government subsidies are available through private crèches and not all government subsidies cover all the costs in private crèches. This directly affects people on lower incomes, single parents returning to education or the workplace.
All childcare staff are paid a living wage including sick pay.
Fine Gael’s love of the free market has ensured that Ireland’s childcare system is unsustainable, in crisis and a burden to working-class families. Under capitalism, we will always be fighting to maintain progressions or to gain reforms. This is not just a Fine Gael problem, rather it is a problem with capitalism and the system it has created.
We need a revolution, therefore, against capitalism, and the creation of a socialist system, based on the ability and need of everyone in society, striving for all childhoods to be loving and nurturing while creating the environment for children to be the best they can be, and giving parents and caregivers the choice of being at home or at work with the support of an early childcare setting.
Niamh McDonald is a Marxist Feminist activist and lone parent. She has been actively involved in campaigns dealing with austerity, the housing crisis, reproductive rights, and challenging the Far Right. She has researched and co-authored work on socio-political topics in her areas of activism. On reproduction rights, she has collaborated on Campaigning for choice: Canvassing as feminist pedagogy in Dublin Bay North. (In Browne, K. and Calkin,S. Eds.) and After Repeal: Rethinking Abortion Politics. (Zed Books). She has done extensive research on the recent rise of the Far Right in Ireland, producing her thesis: Gone Viral; The crash the pandemic and the rise of the Irish Far Right. Niamh is a member of Independent Left.
Notes:
Social Justice Ireland (2020) The importance of public investment in early years. Socialjustice.ie
Eurydice (2019) Early childhood education and care in Europe. www.eacea.ec.europa.eu
Louise Bayliss (2019) Opinion single parent will be forced onto welfare if childcare costs not addressed. Journal.ie
Niamh Mcdonald (2020) Childcare and early childhood education: a socialist view. Independentleft.ie
Social Justice Ireland (2020) The importance of public investment in early years. Socialjustice.ie
SIPTU (2020) Big start campaign. bigstart.ie
Early childhood Ireland (2020) Dealing with the pandemic: The case of early years and school age childcare providers in Ireland. Earlychildhood.ie
Ibid