Over the past number of years, the conversation around Early Learning and Care (ELC) and School Age Childcare (SAC) in Ireland has increasingly centred on affordability. Government policy has rightly recognised that the cost of childcare places significant pressure on families, and successive funding measures have aimed to reduce fees and improve accessibility. 

 

However, alongside this narrative sits a quieter and more complex reality, one that services, managers, and educators experience daily. As parental costs reduce, the question increasingly being asked within the sector is: who absorbs the pressure created by affordability? 

 

This is not a criticism of the objective. Affordable childcare is essential for families, workforce participation, and child outcomes. The challenge lies in ensuring that affordability does not unintentionally create instability elsewhere in the system. 

 

A System Balancing Competing Pressures 

 

The ELC and SAC sector is currently balancing three competing priorities: 

 

1.      Reducing costs for families 

2.      Improving pay and professionalism within the workforce 

3.      Maintaining service sustainability 

 

Each of these objectives is valid. The difficulty arises when all three are expected to progress simultaneously without structural change. 

 

Core Funding and the National Childcare Scheme have brought welcome stability and have prevented fee increases in many services. Yet for providers, the cost base has continued to rise. Wage expectations have increased appropriately through ERO adjustments, recruitment challenges remain significant, and regulatory expectations continue to expand. 

In practice, many services now operate within tighter financial margins than before funding increases were introduced. 

 

The Workforce in the Middle 

 

Early years educators remain the single most important factor in quality provision. Research consistently demonstrates that stable, experienced, and well-supported staff directly influence children’s outcomes, emotional security, and learning experiences. 

 

At the same time, the sector continues to face: 

 

·       Recruitment shortages 

·       Retention difficulties 

·       Emotional and administrative workload pressures 

·       Increased expectations around inclusion, safeguarding, and documentation 

 

When affordability becomes the dominant public narrative, there is a risk that workforce realities become secondary. Services are often expected to improve pay, maintain ratios, invest in training, and absorb operational increases while also limiting income through fee caps. 

The result can be a quiet squeeze on sustainability, where services remain open but operate under ongoing financial and staffing strain. 

 

Affordability Without Sustainability Is Not Progress 

 

A key tension emerging in sector discussions is the assumption that affordability and sustainability will naturally align. In reality, they do not unless funding models fully reflect the true cost of delivery. 

 

Early years provision is labour-intensive by design. Ratios, supervision requirements, and safeguarding responsibilities mean that staffing costs will always represent the largest expenditure. Unlike other sectors, efficiency gains cannot be achieved by reducing staff without directly impacting quality and safety. 

 

If affordability measures are not matched by sufficient investment in workforce costs, the system risks: 

 

·       Reduced availability of places 

·       Increased staff turnover 

·       Managerial burnout 

·       Closure of smaller or community-based services 

 

The long-term impact of this is reduced choice for families — the opposite of what affordability policies aim to achieve. 

 

Reframing the Conversation 

 

The sector does not need to choose between affordability and workforce sustainability. What is needed is a more honest framing of the conversation. 

 

Affordable childcare should not mean inexpensive childcare. It should mean appropriately funded childcare, where: 

 

- Families pay manageable fees, 

- Educators receive professional wages, 

- Services operate sustainably, and 

- Quality remains central. 

 

This requires ongoing recognition that early years services are not simply businesses or supports for employment; they are part of Ireland’s social infrastructure. 

 

Moving Forward as a Sector 

 

For providers and managers, the challenge is to continue advocating for both families and staff without positioning these interests in opposition to one another. Transparent communication about costs, staffing realities, and operational pressures is becoming increasingly important. 

 

For policymakers, the next phase of development may need to move beyond affordability alone and focus on long-term workforce stability and service viability. 

 

Because ultimately, affordability achieved at the expense of sustainability is temporary. A system that cannot retain its workforce cannot maintain quality or access. 
 

The sector’s strength has always been its commitment to children. The next step is ensuring that commitment is matched by structures that support the people delivering that care every day.