Childcare professionals who earn on average €10 an hour, are planning further rallies next Saturday in demand of fair pay.

An inter-departmental group that is looking at the childcare sector will report back to James Reilly, the children’s minister, by the summer.

Campaign seeks improved pay and Government investment in the development of early education

The Government is being asked to allocate more to early childhood care and education.

Thousands of childcare workers are to gather outside the Dáil today in protest against cutbacks in the sector which they say make it impossible for them to earn a living wage.

The Government is facing revolt by the country’s 25,000 childcare workers over demands that they continually upskill while forced to exist on "poverty pay".

The Government is facing revolt by the country’s 25,000 childcare workers over demands that they continually upskill while forced to exist on poverty pay.

A lack of quality and inadequate policy continue to compromise the standard of service in early childhood care, it has been claimed.

Given the paramount importance of education in early childhood, it is worrying to learn that standards of care are still being compromised despite last year’s damning exposé of major flaws in the way some creches were run.

€320m euro has been taken out of early childhood care and education in recent years, according to the Association of Childhood Professionals, which is holding its annual conference in Cork today.

A minimum training standard for all childcare workers and a national registration system for providers will be introduced next year, the Minister for Children, Frances Fitzgerald, said yesterday.

Yesterday’s report, coming as it did on the heels of the RTÉ exposé on rogue childcare businesses, that high rates of staff turnover in childcare settings are unsustainable, is another blow to the idea that this society prioritises the wellbeing of children.

High rates of staff turnover in childcare settings are unsustainable, it was claimed today.

An organisation representing 22,500 professionals is being launched today, following controversy in recent weeks over the standards of care in Irish crèches.

Gardaí have begun a criminal investigation into the alleged physical abuse of children which featured in Tuesday’s Prime Time documentary on creches.

Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald has described the mistreatment of children uncovered at three creches for an RTÉ documentary as emotional abuse.

Senator Jillian Van Turnhout says the Health Service Executive must respond to last night's Prime Time programme, which showed widespread breaches of HSE regulations at child care centres across the country.

Parents arriving at the Links Creche in Malahide have been defending the child care centre this morning.

Childcare organisations are calling on the Government to fund improved training of childcare staff as they try to dampen down a “crisis of confidence” created by revelations about substandard practice at three Dublin creches.