Jennifer Horgan: For the sake of Ireland's children, let's march in solidarity with their carers
Eithne Scally at Village Montessori School in Blackrock, Cork: 'Working in the sector can be extremely rewarding but staff need to be rewarded too — there is a staff shortage in the sector. People have spent four years attaining professional qualifications but they can’t afford to live on the wages. Picture: Larry Cummins
For years now, I’ve wondered why Ireland is so obsessed with the Leaving. It’s possible that we view it as a starting point, a giant milestone that calms our national nerves, prompts a massive societal exhale. All is well. The future is in safe hands. The kids are alright.
But if we really want to know or predict society’s future, we need to go back further, way back before a child is anywhere near school-going age.
Ideally, we need to follow that first ribboning cry down a hospital corridor… Seriously, it’s less about secondary school teachers like me. The older a child, the harder it is for anyone to turn things around for them. Early intervention is key in their development — support, kindness, and security in their early years are nothing short of vital.
During these initial months, the architecture of the brain is constructed and those individual constructions eventually become society, become our world.
Whatever our reasons, it looks like we’re not going to allow it for much longer. Yes, Ireland as a society is beginning to listen. It’s beginning to fight back in order to protect children’s early years.
On September 26, childcare providers, parents, and employees will march in Dublin on the first day of a three-day protest.
I visited Eithne Scally in her Montessori school in Cork this week to find out why she and her staff will be making that Tuesday trip to the Dáil. The situation she describes is truly shocking for anyone interested in children or our country’s future.
Last September, childcare providers like Eithne Scally were invited to join a core funding scheme that promised improved conditions in the sector. Once providers joined however, their fees were frozen, meaning highly experienced, educated and skilled staff members could not be paid appropriately.
“This is having a devastating effect,” says Scally, who reports that while the Government may be well-intentioned, its programme is failing, and the biggest losers are families and their children.
This September, the same core funding gave facilities an increase of three cent per child per hour.
“What can honestly be achieved with this level of investment — will it improve facilities, standards of education, pay for staff? No, it will not; it’s an insult,” says the clearly frustrated business owner.
“The minister can talk about funding, but how much of it is actually arriving at facilities?”
Eithne Scally reminds me hers is a private business. Like any business, it needs to be sustainable — there are financial commitments in terms of delivering services; there are salaries to pay alongside all of the other day-to-day bills such as utilities, bank charges, commercial rates, maintenance, and upgrade costs. She often feels like the Government is using her premises for free.
She also feels she has lost control of the business she has run successfully for 25 years. She is struggling to run it the way she believes it needs to be run, in a way that prioritises the children in her care, the families in her community, and the teachers she values.
Regulation, administration, and bureaucracy are also key messages that come up throughout our discussion. Inspections are carried out by three different bodies with no coherency or cohesion — all with their their own demands.
This over-complication is placing a huge administrative and mental burden on all providers and staff — all the while taking focus away from what they are really good at — formative years of education.
The crisis is especially acute when it comes to staffing, says Scally.
“Working in the sector can be extremely rewarding but staff need to be rewarded too — there is a staff shortage in the sector. People have spent four years attaining professional qualifications but they can’t afford to live on the wages.
"Regardless of their education or experience, they are being offered a minimum of €13 an hour. Providers can’t offer them more because they have inadequate funding and no option to raise fees. And any request for money from parents is seen as a breach of the core funding contract.”
Eithne Scally feels parents are finally beginning to understand the pressures.
"For a long time, I don’t think parents really understood. They saw us smiling at the door but we needed to stay upbeat for their children. We had to smile through it all for their sakes.
"But I think parents are realising the truth of it now, that it’s just unsustainable. It’s not complicated and good communication from the minister would make this evident. Is he a partner in the core funding programme or not? If he is, then he needs to communicate.”
According to Elaine Dunne, chairperson of the Federation of Early Childhood Providers, the largest union in the sector, 97 childcare providers have closed countrywide since March of this year.
Like Eithne Scally, she is confident a lot of parents will turn up on the day of the strike. More and more women, she suggests, are beginning to figure out that they’re the ones bearing the brunt of poor Government policy and funding.
"Mothers in particular know that if we are forced to close our doors because we can’t afford to keep them open, they will be the ones forced out of the workforce. The fathers will carry on working. Our employees, also women, will be forced back on the dole if we close.”
Dunne also has a huge issue with the way the sector is being treated.
“We do crucial work in supporting and identifying needs in children, but even if we identify a need the Government will only cover three hours of attention and care for that child a day.
Elaine Dunne’s last comment blows me away. Her business is becoming a charity to make up for the deficits of the State. The sector is being so badly treated, so desperately taken advantage of, that they have been left with no choice but to pay for the care of other people’s children themselves.
Sadly, the total number of early childcare providers in Ireland has dropped from 4,483 in 2017 to 4,062 as of March of this year.
Here’s hoping September 26 brings our collective attention back to the very beginning, to those minutes, hours, days, and months that matter most. Back to those very important people who do so much to aid the healthy development of our nation’s children.
