Cherry Blossom Montessori Castleknock

Some of the Cherry Blossom Snowmen & Snow-women that the children made this week ⛄️⛄️⛄️⛄️⛄️⛄️⛄️🌸
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There are many reasons Early Years & Afterschool services need to leave Core Funding coming from the Dept of Children and instead put that cost onto parents 💔

Service providers are leaving Core Funding for sustainably of their businesses and not out of greed as so often disrespectfully implied.

If you leave Core Funding you lose not only previously received & entitled funding but opportunities for staff to upskill and also any funding/support towards the ERO (Employment Regulation Order)

Emer Currie TD - Dublin West

Jack Chambers

Paul Donnelly TD

Ruth Coppinger

Cllr. Siobhan Shovlin

Cllr John Walsh

Roderic O'Gorman TD

Councillor Ted Leddy

Social Democrats

Fine Gael

Sinn Féin Ireland

Fianna Fáil

🚨⚠️Irish Early Years Sector Survey Warns of Systemic Breakdown as Government Holds Course⚠️🚨

The Irish early years sector is warning of a systemic breakdown after a meeting with the Department of Children this week offered little relief to providers already reporting profound financial instability, wage pressure, and service attrition. New national survey data presented at the meeting reveals extraordinary levels of dissatisfaction across nearly every operational metric, with more than 95% of providers supporting collective action.

The Federation of Early Childhood Providers (FECP), representing services across the country, said the figures demonstrate not a sector approaching crisis but one already in collapse.
According to the Department, there are now 4,527 registered services nationwide. FECP has requested a detailed breakdown, noting that a significant share appears to be school-age services rather than early years provision, a distinction that materially affects capacity reporting and policy direction.

Funding Increase Falls Short

The Employment Regulation Order (ERO), which took effect in October, was acknowledged by the sector as a marginal support. However, providers say the measure is nowhere near adequate to meet escalating costs.

All services must now review and confirm that wage rates comply with the ERO, a requirement that adds administrative burden without addressing underlying structural underfunding.

The Department confirmed it will maintain its fee management system.

No reopening of fee caps is planned in the immediate term. While officials referenced a potential annual fee review mechanism, the proposal remains speculative, with no detail or timeline.

New Reporting Mandate in 2026

Beginning in February 2026, all partner services will be required to submit a full trial balance — a level of financial monitoring many providers say will add yet another compliance cost as margins narrow further.

The Federation has also requested full accounting of applications to the sustainability fund, including how many services have accessed it and on what basis. No figures were provided at the meeting.

NCS Uptake Driven by School-Age Sector?

The Department reported a 31 percent increase in uptake of the National Childcare Scheme. FECP has again asked for a breakdown, arguing that the rise is primarily in school-age services and does not reflect improved viability within early years settings.

Meanwhile, the Department confirmed there will be no increase in funding for sponsorship chicks next year.

Registration Concerns

More than 3,400 services have completed Tusla re-registration. However, 173 services have not engaged, prompting concern that many have already closed quietly. All services must be re-registered by November 14 or risk losing funding.

Providers raised ongoing frustration around Garda vetting access, asking that copies be issued directly to services. The Department rejected the request, stating that vetting is held by Tusla and not shared with service providers as it was not necessary. A review is underway at the Department of Justice on this process. We have been assured that the disclosure document is the only item we need to have on file.

A recorded tutorial on pensions and auto-enrolment is expected to be posted to The Hive. No release date has been confirmed.

Our Survey Findings:

A Near-Total Rejection of Government Policy

The FECP survey, completed by 479 service owners — with many of our members operating multiple sites — offers a rare unanimity in public-facing sector data.

• 98% say current funding levels are inadequate.

• 97% say projected income for next year will be worse.

• 96% report that they cannot pay themselves properly.

97% say wage allocation does not cover costs, even excluding graduate roles and including pension auto-enrolment.

• 95% support collective action.

The data further reveals that 62% of providers face corporate tax bills exceeding €5,000 annually — despite widespread inability to pay their own wages sufficiently.

Providers describe a system in which the State controls fees, dictates wage standards, increases compliance obligations, and demands new financial disclosures, while the funding to support these obligations fails to materialise.

The result, they say, is that providers are effectively subsidising the national childcare system out of personal income.

“This is not partnership,” one provider said. “It is extraction.”

Operational Strain

ECCE providers reported a seven-week gap between the November and January payments. The Federation asked that January funds be released earlier; the Department said the request is under consideration.

On commercial rates, the Department is in discussions with the Department of Housing. The Federation has called for a direct meeting with the Minister.

The Department says that the newly increased AIM Level 7 rate of €18 per hour is covered within current funding — a claim many providers dispute based on operational budgets.

“Collapse in Motion”

Sector leaders say there is a widening disconnect between Government policy and frontline economic reality.

They note that infant care capacity continues to shrink; burnout and attrition are accelerating; AIM delays are excluding children from support; and closures are quietly spreading.

The FECP survey data, they argue, leaves little room for interpretation:

Stability: collapsed.
Sustainability: gone.
Wage integrity: impossible.
Provider income: insufficient.
Confidence in Government: evaporated.

In other sectors, a 98% rejection rate would trigger emergency intervention.

The Federation argues that early years education deserves equal seriousness.

A Turning Point

The Federation will convene a member meeting on Tuesday November 11th at 7 p.m. to determine next steps.

With 95% of respondents supporting collective action, the sector appears poised for a critical pivot.

“Providers are out of time, out of staff, and out of money,” the Federation said. “The only thing they are not out of is resolve.”

The message, they added, is not one of threatened collapse — but of collapse already underway.

“In any other national infrastructure — hospitals, schools, transport — these numbers would trigger immediate intervention.

Yet early years providers are expected to absorb loss after loss while carrying the workforce that allows the broader economy to function.”

The Federation warned that without immediate structural reform, the Government will “own the collapse of early years education in Ireland.”

The choice now, they say, is simple: intervene — or watch the system fall.

Thank you all for your support,

The FECP Team

Join us via the link in the comments below 👇

The Cherry Blossom team are looking forward to a well deserved rest over the midterm 👏

Thank you for trusting us with your children 🌸💖

So much fun this morning for Beep Beep Day 🚦✨ The children were delighted to see & hear all the trucks beeping at us from the bridge. 🛻 ✨Thank you to for the children’s hi viz vests. Lots of interest in road safety 👏

Round and around we go!!

Emer Currie TD - Dublin West
Jack Chambers
Paul Donnelly TD
Ruth Coppinger

Mother calls for Govt to address lack of childcare spaces With less than a week to go before Budget 2026, many parents are wondering if accessibility to childcare will be addressed.

Nobody is listening to early years & school age care service providers on the ground trying to facilitate government schemes on insufficient funding.

The department are making stupid mistakes costing us time that we are unpaid for.

Frankly it has become unworkable

Emer Currie TD - Dublin West
Ruth Coppinger
Jack Chambers
Paul Donnelly TD
Roderic O'Gorman TD
Cllr John Walsh
Cllr. Siobhan Shovlin
Councillor Ted Leddy
Leo Varadkar T.D.
Fine Gael
Cllr. Ellen Troy - Aontú, Dublin West
Fianna Fáil
RTÉ News
RTÉ One
RTÉ 2fm
Irish Independent
The Irish Times

🚨Childcare Crisis Exposed: The Numbers Don’t Lie—Government Narratives Do🚨

For months, Ireland has been told the same story: our childcare system is at breaking point, bursting with waiting lists, parents locked out everywhere, no spaces left anywhere.

But a new survey of 543 early years businesses across the nation by the Federation of Early Childhood Providers (FECP) has blown a gaping hole in that narrative.

The findings are staggering:

Of the 543 Early Years Owners (with some having multiple services, providing for numbers of children well into the thousands)

• 234 providers (43%) have no waiting list whatsoever.

• 229 providers (42%) are currently not at regulation-allowed capacity.

• Only 314 providers (57%) are full.

These results prove one thing beyond question: Ireland’s childcare crisis is not a crisis of demand. It is a crisis of mismanagement, misrepresentation, and deliberate political distortion.

The Manufactured Myth of “Overflowing Waiting Lists”

Government bodies and Pobal reports have painted a doomsday picture of the early years sector. The headlines scream:

• “Huge waiting lists.”
• “Parents with no access to care.”
• “The system at breaking point.”

But the new FECP’s survey shows the opposite:

• Almost half of all providers have space right now.

• 42% are not even full.

The real crisis is regional mismatch and starvation budgets—not universal overcrowding.

This is not a wall-to-wall overflow. It is bad planning, funding and lack of consultation.

The Hard Reality on the Ground

Families are being misled. Parents are told there are “no places anywhere” when the truth is:

• In some towns, parents face queues stretching years ahead.

• In others, services sit half-empty because providers cannot afford the staff or resources to open more rooms, even when the space exists.

This isn’t a shortage of childcare places nationwide, it’s a policy failure to balance supply with demand.

And the result?

Families suffer.
Providers suffer.
Children suffer.

The Devastating Consequences

1. Parents’ Lives in Ruin

Parents—especially mothers—are forced out of the workforce because they cannot access care. Careers stall. Household incomes shrink. Families are left in limbo. All while, in another town, providers are begging for children to fill places.

2. Providers Silenced and Scapegoated

Services with empty places are ignored. Those with waiting lists are blamed. Across the board, providers are struggling under chronic underfunding, staffing shortages, and red tape that make it impossible to respond to local needs.

3. A Sector on the Brink

Providers and Educators, trained to the highest levels, are leaving in droves. Staff turnover averages 25% and shoots past 50% in some regions. No consultation, low pay, low recognition, no career pathways or incentives for educators to enter the market as providers. Without this fixed, any additional hours (ECCE) for example is meaningless.

4. A System Designed to Fail

The government shouts about “investment,” but the numbers expose the truth:

Ireland spends just 0.14% of GDP on childcare. The EU average? 0.71%. Nordic countries? Over 1.5%.

This isn’t by accident, it’s political choice. For decades, Ireland has chosen to starve the early years sector.

And the question is unavoidable:

Does our government think so little of the future of this country that it refuses to invest in its own children?

The Three Big Lies That Must Be Exposed

1. “All providers are full.”

Wrong. 43% have no waiting list. 229 aren’t even full.

2. “The problem is demand.”

Wrong. Demand is steady. The problem is a system throttled by underfunding, mismanagement, and staff shortages.

3. “We’re investing.”

Wrong. By every European measure, Ireland sits at the bottom, outspent fivefold by its peers, tenfold by leaders.

Our call to action:

The Irish people deserve better. It’s time to end the lies and fix the system.

• Honesty in reporting – Stop inflating crisis headlines. Show the real numbers.

• Proper funding – Bring Ireland to at least EU average investment. Stop treating early years as an afterthought.

• Regional planning – Map supply with demand. End the absurdity of half-empty services in one town and impossible lists in another.

The Bottom Line

The FECP survey is a bombshell:

• 234 providers with no waiting lists.
• 229 providers not at full capacity.

A system misrepresented, mismanaged, and misreported. Spread this out statistically throughout the number of services across the nation and the numbers get increasingly scary.

The so-called childcare crisis is not about “overflowing waiting lists.” It is about a government that refuses to invest properly in its children, its families, and its future.

This is not just childcare. This is about trust. Honesty. The value we place on the next generation, and the value our government places on those who choose to nurture it.


Join us ⬇️

It should not be this difficult to provide high quality education & care to the children in our communities.

Let us do what we do well & give us what we need to focus on the children 💖✨

🚨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

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