Labour body proposes 10% rise in minimum pay for childcare workers

A 10 per cent increase in minimum rates of pay for childcare workers has been proposed by the Joint Labour Committee.
Minister for Children Norma Foley welcomed the development, after highlighting that not all of a €45 million ring-fenced allocation was being used for pay and conditions.
Advertisement
The proposals have been put forward by the Joint Labour Committee, which is made up of employer and worker representatives.
It has the responsibility for setting minimum rates of pay for over 35,000 staff in the early years and childcare sector.
The changes would be part of an employment regulation order (ERO) which is a mechanism to set the minimum rates of pay and conditions for workers in a specified business sector.
The order is drawn up by a Joint Labour Committee and signed into law by the Minister for Enterprise.
Advertisement
Ms Foley said: 'The new proposals for a 10 per cent increase in minimum pay represent a significant step toward ensuring fair pay for educators and practitioners working in the sector.
'I am committed to ensuring the successful implementation of these proposals by providing a ring-fenced allocation of €45 million from Core Funding.
'It has been specifically earmarked to support services in meeting the cost of the proposed increases in pay and conditions.'
Recently, Ms Foley met with the Joint Labour Committee to highlight the availability of this €45 million in core funding from the State for increased pay for staff in the early years and childcare sector.
Advertisement
She said: 'I would like to acknowledge the hard work and dedication of the Joint Labour Committee in these negotiations and their vital role in advancing the professionalism and value of those working in the sector.
'If these proposals are implemented through updated Employment Regulation Orders, they will bring much-needed improvements in pay for these dedicated professionals, enhancing the quality of care and education provided to children across Ireland.
'I am hopeful that these proposals will soon come into effect, marking a positive change for our dedicated and skilled staff in the early learning and childcare sector and the services that employ them.'
Fine Gael spokeswoman for childcare Emer Currie welcomed that a proposal had been agreed.
Advertisement
Ireland
Childcare fees for some parents to be reduced from...
Read More
'We continue to see progress in recognising the vital role of our childcare educators and practitioners,' she said.
'Staffing remains one of the key issues facing the sector.
'It's important that pay remains on the agenda in the short-term as part of the review of core funding and long-term too as the Government considers how State-led facilities take shape.'

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Times

20 minutes ago

• Times

Leprechaun economics? Ireland's pot of gold could vanish any time

T wo headlines from recent weeks offered conflicting pointers. On June 6, David Murphy, RTE's economics and public affairs editor, posted a report headlined: 'Latest GDP figures hint at return of Leprechaun Economics'. A day later, Michael Murphy wrote a piece for The Daily Telegraph headed 'No more leprechaun economics: Ireland's tax swindle is finally ending'. You pays your money, you takes your choice. In fairness, David Murphy's piece for RTE was tentative in its conclusion and built heavily on the remarkable news from the Central Statistics Office that the Irish economy had grown by a staggering 9.7 per cent in the first three months this year. This was an example of leprechaun economics at its best: showing the vulnerability of Irish economic data to American multinational decisions that have little to do with domestic developments.

The Guardian

an hour ago

• The Guardian

Cult of celebrity feels like a fundamental tension at the heart of the game

It is in the details that the truest picture emerges. Quite aside from the endless politicking, the forever-war with Uefa, the consorting with autocrats and the intriguing broadcast rights and partnership deals, there has been, not a new, but growing sense during the Club World Cup that Fifa doesn't really get football. There is something cargo-cultish about it, creating outcomes without engaging in processes. Perhaps that is inevitable with Gianni Infantino's style of leadership; like all populists, he is big on vision and short on practical reality. It was there in the expansion of the World Cup to 48 teams. OK: how will the tournament be organised? Sixteen groups of three. Won't that mean either lots of potential dead rubbers (one team from each group goes through) or opportunities for collusion (two go through)? Oh, actually, the four-team groups at the 2022 have worked so well, we'll go with 12 groups of four. Sure, but then you have eight best third-place teams going through which: a) diminishes jeopardy; and b) undermines sporting integrity by giving an advantage to teams in later groups because they have a clearer idea of what is needed to progress, again offering opportunities for collusion. No response, because all that matters is a bigger tournament equals more votes for the president and (in the short term) more revenue. One of the oddest aspects of the Club World Cup has been the way players are greeted on to the pitch individually, like swimmers before an Olympic final. At Ulsan HD v Mamelodi Sundowns, they may as well have gone on and introduced the crowd as well. Who needs this? Who wants this? Why does the first player out have to hang around for several minutes waiting for the 22nd player? For well over a century the two teams have walked out side by side. This has always been part of the gladiatorial ritual of football. This is the contest: one team against another. But as Fifa has sought desperately to improve attendances and stimulate interest, its focus has become more and more on the individual. That is why there was all that talk, much of it emanating from Infantino, about Cristiano Ronaldo potentially securing a short-term deal with a qualifier, and why qualifying was gerrymandered to ensure the presence of Lionel Messi's Inter Miami. But there is a potentially self-defeating short-termism to this. While the desire to see Messi is entirely understandable, especially as he enters the late autumn of his career, Inter Miami are sixth in MLS's Western Conference, their form having disintegrated since the end of March. From an MLS point of view, the ideal scenario would have been for one of their sides to beat a storied opponent, perhaps push on to the quarter-finals, generating interest in North America's domestic league. The best way of doing that would have been to have the best-possible MLS representation, but Inter Miami are in no sense one of the best three sides. As it is, none of the MLS sides won their opening game, although Porto's dismal form and Messi's dead-ball ability may get Inter Miami through anyway. It might also be pointed out that Auckland City are not the best side in New Zealand, nor are Red Bull Salzburg one of the best 12 sides in Europe, but the consequences are greater for the host nation, particularly when there is apparently so much potential for growth. The celebritisation of football is not new, but it is intensifying. When Paul Pogba returned to Manchester United in 2016 and, rather than speaking of the Premier League or becoming a European champion, said he dreamed of winning the Ballon d'Or, it felt shocking, a player elevating his own interests and a silly bauble above the glory of team success. But that has become normal. Improving his Ballon d'Or chances is one of the reasons Neymar left Barcelona for Paris Saint-Germain; even Trent Alexander-Arnold mentioned the Ballon d'Or as a motivation for joining Real Madrid (good luck with that from right-back). Sign up to Football Daily Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football after newsletter promotion The marketing of football is almost all focused on individuals. That's been particularly so at the Club World Cup, but it is true of almost every competition. Even the way lineups are introduced on Sky's Premier League coverage, with the players performing a fake celebration, seems designed to introduce them as characters. Yet there is a tension there. While individual players are celebrated, the increasing use of data means image and self-projection may never have mattered less. The stats will find the talent, even if the talent has no gift for self-promotion. At the same time, the best teams have never been so cohesive, so integrated. PSG provide a useful case study. For years they signed stars with seemingly little thought to how they might play together. Although their immense resources won them the French league, they habitually choked in Europe. Then there was a change of approach, the money was spent not on Neymar and Messi but on players on the way up who still had a hunger for success and who could play together. The result was the Champions League and, despite their defeat by Botafogo, possibly the inaugural world title in the expanded format. If it was conceived as a two-stage strategy – build the brand through celebrity, then win the actual competitions – it has worked to perfection; in reality, it's probably trial and error that has brought them to this point. At Real Madrid, meanwhile, Florentino Pérez still seems locked in his galáctico vision of football, insisting on adding Kylian Mbappé to a squad that already contained Vinícius Júnior and Rodrygo, resulting in imbalance and an expensive downturn in form. This goes deeper than transfer policies, though. This feels like a fundamental tension at the heart of the game. What, after all, is success in modern football? Manchester City for the past decade have been a much better football team than PSG, and yet they have nothing like the brand awareness. Is success winning trophies, or making money? Is it winning trophies or becoming more famous? Is it winning trophies or marketing the individual? The individual walk-ons only blur the lines further, suggest organisers who struggle with the concept that football, perhaps more than any other sport, is a game of the team.

Telegraph

an hour ago

• Telegraph

Labour must put energy security ahead of net zero ideology

British Government ministers appear to enjoy nothing quite so much as interfering with complex systems they don't entirely understand. Research commissioned by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero has highlighted one set of clearly unintended consequences that could soon come about as a result of Energy Secretary Ed Miliband's fanatical pursuit of his 2050 target. Interactions between high temperatures, solar panels, heat pumps and the transmission network may result in a greater likelihood of 'electricity shortfalls and loadshedding', a polite euphemism for controlled blackouts. The driving mechanisms are straightforward: heat pumps, soon to be mandatory in newbuilds, and highly incentivised in older properties, offer cooling capabilities that are likely to increase electricity demand during hot periods. At the same time, Britain's distributed renewables grid will be more exposed to degradation of performance due to these same high temperatures as solar panel efficiency falls and transmission networks are pushed to their limit as carrying capacities fall, increasing 'the likelihood of widespread blackouts'. It is a fascinating combination of incentives and outcomes, particularly for a department with 'energy security' in its title. It is also an excellent illustration of why we should be deeply sceptical of government schemes that seek to remake society on a grand scale: the choices to push certain approaches has created this pathway to instability. It is far from the only way in which net zero puts energy security at risk. There are the dark, windless winter days where neither solar nor wind provide significant inputs into Britain's grid, potentially leaving us reliant on backup power sources – an additional source of capital costs – or on interconnectors to European countries, which may also find their generating capacity limited. At the other end of the spectrum, a report into Spain's April blackouts has highlighted that particularly sunny days may drive prices negative, causing producers to switch off in a cascading failure. Britain does at least seem to have learnt this lesson ahead of time, taking steps to prevent a similar incident here. As the UK report has highlighted, however, it would be foolish to assume perfect foresight of future risks. It is surely time the Government put energy security ahead of net zero ideology.