Budget 2023 Submissions: An Overview
Budget 2023, positioned as ‘The Cost of Living Budget’ has been brought forward by the Government and will be announced on 27 September, two weeks earlier than planned. Along with other budgetary advocacy and policy work, Early Childhood Ireland has been tracking the publication of pre-budget submissions from various organisations to monitor support for the Early Years and School Age Care (EY/SAC) sector, in the lead up to Budget 2023. This is our second overview of recently published submissions to date.
Early Childhood Ireland published our own Budget 2023 Submission: Time For Transformation in July. We called on the Government to announce an ambitious five-year plan of investment that includes key priorities and clear funding targets for each year to transform our invaluable early years and school age care sector. The following submissions from organisations showcase a shared understanding that increased public investment in early years and school age care should be a public and political priority.
The National Women’s Council of Ireland (NWCI)
The NWCI’s Pre Budget-Submission sets out 10 priority asks for women in Budget 2023 to address the cost of living through public services and income supports. The first of these priorities calls on Government to deliver a universal, public ‘childcare’ model with an additional investment of €250m in 2023. The NWCI draws attention to the lack of investment in the care economy, a predominantly female and low paid workforce, and the high cost of early years and school age care, which remains the largest barrier to women taking up paid work. The delivery of a universal, public care model represents a solution to these barriers to gender equality. Other recommendations under this priority are as follows:
Recommendations
- Increase investment in early years to 1% of national income by no later than 2030, in line with UNICEF target and Citizens’ Assembly recommendations.
- Extend the maximum 45 hours subsidy available under the NCS to parents not in work in recognition that these are the most disadvantaged families and early years services should be a child’s right, rather than being dependent on a parent’s principal economic status.
- Invest an additional minimum €50m to progress efforts to deliver fair wages and conditions to the workforce.
Barnardos
Barnardos’ Pre-Budget Submission calls for a ‘Children’s Budget’ in 2023, highlighting the increased risk of pulling more children into poverty due to the cost-of-living increases. Barnardos point to the positive influence of quality early years care and education on children’s outcomes which is well documented. High quality services are particularly beneficial for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. They highlight the Access and Inclusion model (AIM) as a key participatory support. However, AIM currently only applies to children eligible for ECCE. Barnardos calls for the extension of AIM to children before they qualify for ECCE and for more than 15 hours a week during term time.
Recommendations
- Set out details of the plan committed to in budget 2022 to provide low-income families with a specific funding stream to access affordable ‘childcare’.
- Extend AIM to include children under three years accessing EY and for children accessing SAC.
One Family
One Family, draws attention in their Pre-Budget Submission to the fact that one-parent families remain the group most at risk of experiencing poverty and homelessness in our society. Children in one-parent households are four times more likely to live in consistent poverty than those in two-parent households. They point to evidence supporting the strong link between child poverty and negative outcomes for children. Under the heading of Child Poverty, One Family calls on the government to fulfil the following asks:
- Establish an inter-departmental group tasked with coordinating policy responses aimed at tackling poverty, deprivation and inequality experienced by one-parent families
- Develop a National Child Poverty Action Plan, including a child poverty target and focus on supporting one-parent families out of poverty.
- In line with the EU Child Guarantee, provide free early years and school age care for children in one-parent families. As a first step ensure early years and school age care is free for lone parents in education or training.
- Extend the maximum 45 hours subsidy available under the National Childcare Scheme (NCS) and remove child benefit and child maintenance as assessable means for the purpose of the scheme.
Childhood Services Ireland (CSI)
CSI, the IBEC association representing Irish ‘childcare’ providers has not yet published its Pre-Budget Submission. However, they recently publicised some of their priority asks:
- Additional funding of €10 million to help providers meet inflation demands and hire the staff they need.
- The expansion of the €221m Core Funding stream by €20m to account for non-staff overheads costs.
- The tripling of the universal subsidy under the National Childcare Scheme from 50c per hour to €1.50 and increase the household income threshold for the targeted subsidy from €60,000 to €80,000.
- €70 million in capital grant funding to increase capacity in the early years and school age care sector.
Our first overview of Budget 2023 Submissions can be found here. Early Childhood Ireland will continue to analyse and report on further publications as they become available. If you have any questions, please contact our policy team.
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Share this post
More to explore
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