The Programme for Government outlines the commitment to ‘undertake a broad consultation and publish a detailed Action Plan to build an affordable, high-quality, accessible early childhood education and care system with State-led facilities adding capacity’. It goes on to state, ‘This plan will enhance parental choice through ongoing support for public, private and community provision, as well as childminders’.
My Officials are very much in the planning phase for this work, including determining the scope of the Action Plan, in the context of existing Plans (such as Nurturing Skills, the Workforce Plan Early Learning and Care and School-Age Childcare, the National Action Plan for Childminding and the First 5 Implementation Plan 2023-2025) and new Plans in development (such as the Action Plan for Administrative and Regulatory Simplification, the National Plan to Support Irish Language Provision in Early Learning and Care and School-Age Childcare, the First 5 Implementation Plan 2026-2028) as well as the ongoing work to review the legislative and regulatory framework for school-age childcare, to strengthen the inspection system and to reform the operating model (with a design and implementation planning phase for the establishment of dedicated state agency underway).
My Officials are also examining available research and data that will inform this Action Plan, including:
• findings from the recently published reviews of the ECCE programme and Access and Inclusion Model,
• the extant administrative data now available through my Department’s funding schemes,
• the new forward planning model in development that seeks to identify the nature and volume of different types of early learning and childcare places across the country and how that aligns with the numbers of children in the corresponding age cohorts at local area level,
• the wide-ranging nationally representative parent survey on early learning and childcare recently undertaken by Ipsos on behalf of my Department,
• the Annual Early Years Sector Profile Survey, which will commence shortly, and
• findings from the OECD TALIS Starting Strong Survey, which are expected later this year.
As part of this exercise, research and data gaps may be identified, as well as options to address them.
Similarly, my Officials are also examining how recent consultations with stakeholders in the sector can inform the design of the broad consultation process that is committed to in the Programme for Government, having regard to ensuring the voices of children and families, educators and practitioners, providers and other stakeholders within the sector are taken into account.
The timelines for undertaking the broad consultation and publishing the Action Plan will be determined during this planning phase. I will update the Deputy as this important work progresses.
