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THE EARLY CHILDHOOD Ireland Barometer 2025, released today, shows extensive recognition by the Irish public of the importance and value of Early Years and School Age Care, with two-thirds of Irish adults agreeing that the education of children aged under five is as important as the education of children aged over five.
For many years, Early Years and School Age Care was viewed as a support for working parents. That perspective is finally shifting. Findings in this year’s Barometer demonstrate the public’s perception of Early Years and School Age Care as an integral part of society that plays a crucial role in children’s emotional, cognitive and social development.
The eighth edition of Early Childhood Ireland’s annual poll shows overwhelming public support (76%) across all age brackets and socio-economic backgrounds for access to high-quality Early Years and School Age Care for all children, with three-quarters in favour of free Early Years provision.
It is clear that the Irish public recognises Early Years and School Age Care as a public good, so the question is: why isn’t this a national priority?
The new government has promised to take steps to improve affordability for families, but much more needs to be done to address enduring issues, including the recruitment and retention of staff and nationwide waiting lists. Thousands of young children are waiting for a crèche place, and it’s obvious that we are nowhere near delivering the access that more than three-quarters of people in Ireland believe every child should have.
The government’s commitments to addressing affordability will fall short if they do not also reform capacity planning in every community and do much more to lift the terms and conditions of the 30,000-strong workforce. Lower fees will mean very little if there are no places for children, and no qualified educators to care for them.
To meet public expectations and the rights of children, we need major progress on long-term capacity planning, locally and nationally. To support the dedicated educators and practitioners who work in 4,700 settings, much faster progress needs to be made in the areas of pay and overall career development for staff. There is public support for improving conditions for Early Years educators, with over half of adults in agreement that staff in crèches who have university degrees should have the same terms and conditions as teachers in primary schools.
It continues to be a source of shame that the government fails to give adequate recognition to those educating our youngest citizens. Without parity of pay and conditions, we will continue to lose talented Early Years and School Age Care graduates to other areas, and the staffing shortage in settings will persist.
This year’s Barometer also highlights strong support for parents to receive better financial assistance to stay at home with their child for the first 12 months, with 65% of the public in favour, up 3% from last year’s results. Research shows benefits for children’s development from having a parent or guardian at home in the first year of life.
At Early Childhood Ireland, we have been calling for the government to guarantee 66% of a parent or guardian’s income, in line with the European Commission recommendations, to ensure parents can afford to stay at home during this crucial period.
Despite progress by the last two governments, new reports from the OECD and the European Commission show the legacy of underinvestment here in Ireland. These reports underline that addressing affordability is simply not enough. To strengthen the sustainability of settings, and as Ireland moves towards a publicly funded model, the new government needs to commit to greater investment that will address funding, planning and staffing issues urgently.
The 2025 Barometer clearly demonstrates broad public support for a high-quality, accessible Early Years and School Age Care system. Now is the time for the new government to translate these public sentiments into tangible and lasting changes. Every child in every community should have guaranteed access to this public good as their right and only strong political leadership will get Ireland to where it urgently needs to be.
Frances Byrne is Director of Policy at Early Childhood Ireland.
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The public are ahead of government in all aspects of society? Daily we live through the problems, staring at them for generations, they seem oblivious.
Yet another example where capitalism fails miserably to better our society.
Public services should never be privitised or be for profit. It just doesn’t work. Capitalism works great when making iPhones, but is awful when making an effective public service.
@Caoimhin O’Connor: IPhones are made in China who are communist
@Caoimhin O’Connor: privatisation has worked well for this country, as promised we have excellent water and electrical infrastructure and lower priced electricity, a waste management service that’s vastly improved, a private health service that out performs the public one. Imagine these were once included in your taxes and actually worked well. Now your taxes remain the same but now we pay for these services on top, if like health care you can afford it.
@Spanner: privitisation has not worked well in anything you’ve stated
thankfully to the water protesters water has not been privitised.
we have the highest electricity costs in Europe (& the people who had supply out for 3 weeks would disagree it’s a great infrastructure) so that’s completely wrong.
We have terrible waste management services – why don’t you walk Dublin,cork or Limerick inner city and see what privitisation has done for litter and rural areas for fly tipping. It was way cleaner when the councils took charge of waste.
@Caoimhin O’Connor: Capitalism is the most moral and most successful economic system ever because it allocates the resources effectively to those who deserve it the most. In a free market, no one can demand that you work for them, provide them with goods, or surrender your wealth. Every interaction, whether employment, trade or charity, is voluntary. The failures of childcare in this country come from Socialist intervention from Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. Price controls, heavy regulation, and subsidies distort the market, making childcare more expensive, less available and lower in quality. That’s just basic economics, you’d do well to realise that. Every failure in Ireland can’t be directly linked back to leftist economics. Public service should be the job of the government to begin with.
@William Jennings: Shouldn’t be the job of government to begin with. The only role of government should be to provide a court system, a police and fire service and a standing army for national defence. Everything else should be left to the private sector to handle.
@Joe Willis: Yes, but the profit goes to Cupertino. Apple use China as a low cost manufacturing facility. They don’t make iPhones in the US because it costs too much and shareholders returns would be diminished. Capitalism will always move to where manufacturing costs are lowest so to make higher profits.
No mention on how much taxpayer money will be needed to implement these recommendations. Of course parents want better services for their children at a cheaper price than they are currently paying, however someone will need to pay so lets get some figures on what this will cost and then see what taxes need to increase to pay for it all.
@The next small thing: we have €15bn in a rainy day fund.
If parents didn’t have to spend a second mortgage on creche fees they could spend more in the local economy.
We badly need to increase the birth rate
@Frances Byrne,
Creches are not places of education, they are early learning centers.
Children in creches don’t have to do exams.
Some creches are just dumping grounds for children of lazy parents who can’t be bothered to look after their own children.
@Thomas O’Brien: Since when is learning not education?. My children went to a pre school crèche and there they learned the alphabet and how to count, and read a little. So clearly there is education happening at some of them at least.
@Thomas O’Brien: they are staffed with graduates of early childhood education degrees. Children in primary school don’t have to do exams either, they are still places of education.
@Ger Whelan:
Did they pass all their exams.
@Jane Gunnigan:
They are not staffed with graduates.
They are staffed by child care assistants.
Primary school children get this thing called homework which is a form of exam.
@Thomas O’Brien: or alternately, have to work to feed and clothe them, and also pay for the creche.
@Thomas O’Brien: my niece is a first class honours graduate of the early childhood education degree from DCU. It is a full-time 4 year, level 8 degree. She works in a creche, and most of her colleagues hold the same qualification.
The type of homework given to children in junior and senior infants in primary school is no way comparable to an exam.
@Jane Gunnigan:
No wonder child care is so expensive, with all the college degrees the child care assistants have. Speaking of homework, when the homework is not done the children are told off and get stressed out, just like doing exams.
@Setanta O’Toole:
Not all parents who work, send their children to creches.
@Thomas O’Brien: five year olds are told off and stressed out? Seriously? I’d be having a word with the teacher…
@Thomas O’Brien: pawn them off to a childminder or the grandparents so. How is that any less ‘lazy’ then sending them to a creche?
@Thomas O’Brien: what school are you in that are doing that? My son is in senior infants. Not once has he been given out to for not having homework done. The school even gave us the guideline of homework only taking 15 mins in junior & 20 mins in senior infants. If it’s going on longer, & the child isn’t engaged, the advice from the school is to leave it. And that’s not just for the infant years, they have an approx time and same approach for all years in the primary school. Oh & the minimum by law that someone in a childcare setting has to have is a Level 5 certificate in Early Learning & Care. Minimum if they’re in an ECCE room (which has a set curriculum btw) is a Level 6. That’s just the min. Most places will want people who have higher.
@Susan Walsh:
I finished school a long time ago.
So your son doesn’t do his homework.
A level 5 or level 6 certificate is not a degree in child care.
@Setanta O’Toole:
So the child care assistants are not childminders then. The grandparents are family. I have seen children being dumped at creches and collected whenever the parents are ready and the childminder/carer has to stay there after their shifts until they turn up.
@Jane Gunnigan:
I think you should.
@Thomas O’Brien: you now what i meant pedantic Tom. Someone they pay privately to mind their child only. I’ve seen far more parents take advantage of their own parents then Creche workers, and the majority of them grandparents aren’t getting paid for it either. You haven’t explained how one is somehow ‘lazier’ than the other either.
@Setanta O’Toole:
Both are lazy.
Why do the work when you can get someone to do it for you.
@Thomas O’Brien: I meant that as what school are your children in that you are hearing that from? And where did I say my son didn’t do his homework? I said the school has told us that homework is not essential to their development and if it’s not working that day, to leave it as all forcing them to do it at 5/6 years old will do is cause problems. My son actually enjoys his homework & I think in 2 years there’s been maybe 4 times in total it hasn’t been done. No I didn’t say it was a degree – I said they were the minimum legally. Whereas most places will want more than the minimum needed. Or will encourage their staff to upskill. Personally I would like the people looking after my child to be well qualified.
@Susan Walsh:
I am hearing it from the people who work in the creches. Some parents just leave their children at the creche and go back home to bed. Not all parents work and some of the ones that do have no time for their children, leaving them at the creche until they are good and ready to collect them.
@Thomas O’Brien: Em I said nothing about that at all. I mean it’s nothing to do with me what people are doing if they’re putting their children into childcare. And some might be – but you don’t know if they’re shift workers or what. And then there is ECCE which is for every child for 3 hours a day. I doubt there’s many just leaving them in for a full day when they’re not working considering the massive cost. It’s literally a second mortgage to have a child in full time childcare so I don’t know anyone who is affording that while not doing anything. Oh & my point was more about where you were trying to claim homework was like exams even for primary school children. Which it is not.
@Susan Walsh:
Have you seen some of the homework some children get, it’s like another few hours in class.
@Thomas O’Brien: yes I have. Not only from my child but also nieces & nephews. None that I’ve seen in *primary school* are getting masses of homework that would take hours. Also you ignored the other part about how people are affording the second mortgage cost of childcare if all they’re doing is going home to sleep? You’re very able to pick & choose what bits to reply to that suit yourself.
There are virtually no creche places available in Dublin. It’s an emergency. What is the Minister for Children doing about it?!!
@Pat Redmond: private business.
@Panti Bliss: if the children are in creche, parents are paying for their place, therefore also paying taxes. So not ‘useless’
@Pat Redmond: give them credit they talk about it a fair bit so as mehole would say they stand in solidarity with transparency that’s about the size of it.
Married mothers should be given a Married Mother Allowance.
@thomas molloy: Married fathers should be given a married fathers allowance.
@Willie Marty: Hell, why not throw in a Grandparents allowance while we are at it !
@Willie Marty: Why? Because they do the same level of parenting as mothers! Pigs flying low over ireland…..I await the bullets.
@Clare Power: All mothers do the serious heavy lifting in most cases, it’s a reality.
Everyone wants free stuff but no one wants to pay for it. It’s left-wing government intervention from Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil that has caused the childcare shortage here in Ireland. Instead of allowing competition to bring prices down naturally, the price controls reduce incentives to open new childcare facilities, leading to shortages. It forces providers to cut services to meet artificial price limits. This creates waiting lists, making it harder for parents to find childcare at all. Instead of helping families, subsidies drive costs up by artificially increasing demand. Parents can “afford” to pay more because the government covers some costs. Childcare providers raise prices to capture the subsidy money. The result? Prices keep rising, making childcare even more unaffordable.
@William Jennings: Well, I suppose if you reduce childcare to the equivalent of a sandwich making enterprise, then market forces should prevail. Consumers can choose the cheap ALDI or the expensive M&S type. Similarly with wages, if you’re going to insist that the staff are professionally qualified you’re going to pay more, or you can avail of the services of a non-qualified childminder. So, the choice is between the no market interference by public authorities option or a regulated service that looks after children’s best interests. Children are not sandwiches.
It’s basically common sense coming from a bunch of fools
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