Submission on the Single Affordable Childcare Programme
Introduction
The existing targeted childcare programmes- the Community Childcare Subvention (CCS) programme and the three Training and Employment (TEC) programmes, the Afterschool Childcare (ASCC), Childcare Education and Training Support (CETS) and Community Employment Childcare (CEC) programmes) – are a major part of the lives of tens of thousands of young children in Ireland each day. Approximately 35,000 places were publicly funded under these programmes in 2015, while spending on these programmes accounted for 30 per cent of total public spending on childcare last year, according to data set out in the Department of Children and Youth Affairs (DCYA)’s May 2016 Briefing for Minister (pages 10 & 76). A further 68,000 availed of the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme, according to the July 2015 Report of the Inter-Departmental Working Group: Future Investment in Childcare – hereafter the ‘IDWG report’ (p.27).
The Big Start coalition welcomes the opportunity to outline its initial views on the planned introduction of a Single Affordable Childcare Programme (SACP) in 2017, in place of the existing targeted schemes. In view of the well-documented importance of quality childcare for children, particularly for children from a disadvantaged or with a migrant background, and for society at large, it is of vital importance that the new programme ‘gets it right’.
This is all the more the case asthe new programme isintended to be a “platform for further investment asfunds become available”, and, along with the extended Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme, would “have the advantage that direct subventions to services ensure investment isspent on the Government’s policy objectives and provide for a leveraging of the quality agenda”, according to the IDWG report (pages 82 & 87). The Big Start coalition believes that the single programme should be developed and implemented on a phased basis, integrating both the SACP and ECCE programmes.
This paper sets out the Big Start coalition’s initial views on the principles and high-level goals that the SACP or a future integrated SACP/ECCE programme should meet. We intend to produce more focused positions on specific aspects over the coming months. This paper does not directly cover the universal free pre-school year, called the ‘Early Childhood Care and Education’ (ECCE) programme.
The first issues we wish to address are the children’srightsframework within which the SACP is being developed, what is being considered and the timetable for implementation.
