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.

The Association of Childhood Professionals, which is organising the rallies, said it wants to see the issue of fair pay on election manifestoes and any future Programme for Government.

Association chair Marian Quinn said while early childhood education and care “is a vital public service, on par with primary education”, it is not accorded the same respect and level of investment.

She said many workers in the sector were “earning little more than the minimum wage” while many owner-practitioners were “struggling to take a wage themselves”.

About 25,000 people are working in the sector, making it a significant employer, yet the average wages range from €10.10 per hour for unqualified staff to €11.24 for graduates, according to Early Childhood Ireland.

CEO Teresa Heeney told an Oireachtas children’s committee last month that qualification requirements are increasing but salaries are not, prompting workers to leave the sector.

Next weekend’s rallies take place in Dublin, beginning at at Fingal County Offices on the Main Street in Swords at 12.30pm; in Cork at 12.30pm at the City Library and in Sligo at 2.15pm at the Market Yard.

Ireland spends 0.2% of GDP on the early childhood sector, compared to an OECD average of 0.7%.

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