Child carers to rally over pay

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

A survey of the sector by Early Childhood Ireland in 2013 found a professional early years educator working 15 hours per week at 10 per hour for a 38-week year earns €5,700 per annum.

Next weekend’s rallies, planned for Cork, Dublin and Sligo, come at a time when an inter-departmental working group is finalising a report into the childcare sector, believed to contain recommendations around extending the State’s subsidised after-school childcare scheme and providing paid paternity leave.