25/08/2025
🚨We just cannot let this continue with Media Coverage on Waiting Lists and Staffing in recent articles. 🚨
Sometimes we feel like we are the last line of realism here!
So here goes…
While the figures cited from Pobal highlight serious pressure on families seeking places, the way these numbers are being presented is misleading and obscures the real causes of the crisis.
1. Inflated and Misleading Waiting List Data
The headline claim of 40,000 children on waiting lists requires clarification. Pobal’s own methodology acknowledges:
• Children are often on multiple waiting lists, meaning the same child is counted several times.
• Not all providers operate waiting lists, so the data is incomplete and inconsistent.
To present these figures as a definitive measure of unmet need is irresponsible. Families are being frightened with inflated statistics, and providers are being scapegoated for structural failures not of their making.
2. Infant Places For The Most Part Are Not Viable Under Current Funding
The focus on the lack of places for under-ones ignores the reality that infant care is economically impossible under the current model. Staffing ratios (1:3) make provision prohibitively expensive, yet the State refuses to fund these places at the real cost of delivery. It is disingenuous to suggest providers simply “won’t expand.” In truth, providers cannot expand when the government refuses to fund infant care sustainably.
3. Unrealistic Calls for Pay Parity with Teachers
Early Childhood Ireland’s call for pay parity with primary teachers, while well-intentioned, is divorced from operational reality. Teachers are employed directly by the State. Early years educators are employed by private, voluntary, and community providers who are locked into State-set fee caps and restrictive Core Funding contracts.
If the Government wishes to dictate pay levels, it must first accept the role providers play and allow them to run their businesses fully, not hinder them at every opportunity. Anything less is fantasy politics. Providers cannot pay “parity wages” while being denied the freedom to set fees or the funding required to cover payroll.
4. Passing the Buck to Providers is Unacceptable
The Department of Children has claimed that pay and conditions are “strictly a matter for individual employers.” This is an insult to the sector. Providers are no longer independent businesses in any meaningful sense. The State is the primary funder, it caps fees, dictates terms through Core Funding, and imposes conditions on service delivery. The State is the de facto employer in all but name. To shift responsibility onto providers while denying them financial autonomy is grossly hypocritical. This is why 10% more of our providers when they can are leaving core funding.
5. The Myth of Expanding Capacity
Government claims of a 19% increase in enrolments and a 15% rise in place hours are selective and misleading.
These figures:
• Relate mostly to older children and part-time hours, not the under-threes where the crisis is most acute.
• Mask the reality of closures, particularly of small and rural services, driven out by an unsustainable funding model.
• Represent expansion achieved by stretching existing providers & educators to breaking point, not by building a stable, long-term workforce.
6. Sustainability is the Real Crisis
The public narrative centres on recruitment and retention, but the root problem is deeper with service sustainability.
Providers cannot:
• Expand, because infant places are mostly loss-making.
• Pay staff more, because income is capped.
• Plan long-term, because Core Funding contracts are annual, conditional, and inflexible.
The government has fuelled demand through subsidies while failing to fund supply at real cost. The result is a sector trapped in crisis, families left waiting, and educators leaving in droves.
7. Government Accountability Cannot Be Dodged
This article conveniently allows government to point the finger at “employers” while claiming credit for expansion.
The reality is stark:
• Families are left without places.
• Providers are burning out.
• Services are closing.
• Educators are leaving the profession.
This is not because providers are unwilling to expand or pay staff. It is because government has designed a system that is unworkable, underfunded, and unsustainable.
The Federation of Early Childhood Providers Ireland will not accept scapegoating of frontline operators for failures created by government policy. If the State truly wants Scandinavian standards, it must fund at Scandinavian levels. If it wants teachers’ pay, it must release the noose on the sector.
Until then, the reality is simple: underfunding, over-regulation, and political spin are driving families, providers, and educators into crisis.
The responsibility lies squarely with government, not with the providers who are struggling to keep services alive under impossible conditions.
“Providers are being blamed for a crisis that government policy has created. We cannot expand, we cannot pay more, and we cannot plan for the future because the State has tied our hands. Listen to us! We can help fix this… Until then, families, children, and providers will continue to suffer.” — Elaine Dunne, Chairperson, Federation of Early Childhood Providers Ireland
