“When we invest wisely in children and families, the next generation will pay that back through a lifetime of productivity and responsible citizenship. When we fail to provide children with what they need to build a strong foundation for healthy and productive lives, we put our future prosperity and security at risk.” (Centre on the Developing Child, Harvard University, 2010)

Over the last decade there have been many changes in settings and children’s services in Ireland. Central to these changes there has been a major emphasis put on the impotance of early years care and education and improving the affordability and acessability of childcare and enhancing quality in early years settings in Ireland. In the past the whole area of childcare was neglected and research repeatly found inequalities of provision for children in early years settings. Which in turn lead to government stating that there needed to be more highly quailifed staff in early years settings, to raise the standard of care for young children, thus the ECCE sector related degree courses were created. The Effective Provision of Pre-school Education Project (Sylva et al, 2004) found children achieved better outcomes in settings led by higher qualified staff.

Throughout this letter I am going to look at many issues that the minister needs to address within the early years sector so that we can get Irelands childcare sector up to the highest standard possible in order to give our children the best possible start in life. One of the issues that will make developing the early years sector more critical is the latest statistics which indicate that our early years population has increased by 18% since 2006. This is an immensely valuable resource offering a uniquely valuable potential for Irelands future but it will of course also present challenges in planning the best way forward to ensure a successful