Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
THERE HAS BEEN lots of feelgood fanfare around the roll out of the Affordable Childcare Scheme, which came into force last week. Promotional videos show cute children talking about what their parents get up to when they are busy at crèche.
For working parents struggling with childcare costs, what’s not to like about a State subsidy to help with crèche fees? By enabling more parents to avail of childcare services outside the home, the scheme must surely be greeted with open arms by the childcare providers too?
That’s what you’d think. And it’s what I thought before I carried out an online straw poll in the past week. Curious about how this scheme was going down, I put out a call online to parents in my local area.
Palpable desperation and frustration
I had expected to hear back from parents struggling with increasing childcare costs. Instead the voices I heard were from childcare providers, whose desperation and frustration was palpable. The strong message coming through was that the implementation of this policy, however well meaning, is seriously flawed.
For example, several childcare operators told me that their contracts with the government providing for the roll-out of the programme had not arrived and that they were hearing that the situation was the same in all childcare facilities across the country. They don’t know what rules will be included in their contracts, or when payments etc will be made. They have been told the contracts will be with them in October*.
The managers of childcare facilities who got in touch with me also spoke of an increased administrative burden as result of this new scheme that is placing huge strains on them and their businesses. Some crèches have reported that forms can take 20 minutes to fill out per child. Multiple this by 40 or 50 children, and you can understand their frustration.
Admin requirements
Whilst the government has promised some funding to compensate for these administration requirements, there is no definite schedule as to when that money will be allocated or how.
No one would suggest that paperwork is not needed – we are after all entrusting our cherished children to the care of service providers and we need to be assured that they will be properly cared for.
But could this scheme have worked differently? Was there not a way to structure it so that the onerous administrative requirements didn’t fall entirely on people whose talents lie in caring for children?
Free GP care scheme
Interestingly, when free GP care for children aged under six was rolled out in 2015, parents signed up to the scheme through an online portal managed by the HSE. Forms were not filled in the GP clinic and the administrative duty of implementing it did not fall to the GPs.
But in this instance, the heavy lifting is with the childcare sector, and that has had an impact for workers and parents alike. Some crèches have decided that they need to increase their charges, in part because of the increasing requirements placed on them by the government. In some cases, this has unfortunately negated the benefits that parents were to see as part of the financial support scheme.
The knee-jerk analysis is to view fee hikes as yet another sign of an opportunistic industry that has seen an easy way to make extra cash. While this may be the case with some providers, it is by no means the whole picture.
A chronically underfunded sector
But the real underlying story here is what these reports tell us about our chronically underfunded childcare sector. Amongst the estimated 22,000 workers in the sector, many are employed for just 15 hours a week, or only on contract for 39 weeks a year. This forces thousands of trained workers to sign on to social welfare each summer.
Despite the fact this is a well-qualified workforce, with a minimum qualification of a level 5 QQI award, they earn an average of €10.27 per hour.
This situation is appalling for staff morale and retention levels, but it’s also bad for our children. The first five years are the most important in a person’s life, when the future emotional, social and educational well-being is laid down. Despite this, we have one of the most under undeveloped childcare systems in the EU.
UNICEF’s international benchmark for investment in early years education is 1% of GDP. We spend just 0.5%: below the average for OECD countries and just 25% of the European average investment in early years services. We are nowhere near the 1.8% of GDP spent in Iceland, the 1.6% in Sweden, or 1.4% invested by the Danish.
Hitting smaller operations hard
This historical lack of state funding puts enormous pressure on childcare services, which in turn puts pressure on parents. Far from being a boon, the additional burden of the new Affordable Childcare Scheme, according to people I have spoken to, is hitting some childcare providers hard, particularly smaller operations.
If smaller centres are forced out of business, the childcare options open to parents will greatly limited. This would not be a good result for anyone. As one childcare operator put it to me: “We are in this because we love what we do and, like doctors and nurses, this job is a vocation. We have subsidised the chronic underfunding from the government out of our own pockets for years and there just isn’t the capacity to do it any more”.
As a parent of very young children myself, I deeply value the relationships that form between my family and the people that I entrust to care for my little ones. The State needs to ensure that our children get the best early education and care, and that means that they need to place equally as high a value on the childcare operators that provide that important public service.
*The Department of Children and Youth Affairs has been in contact to say that this is not correct and that contracts have been available to all providers since 19 May 2017. A spokesperson said: Given that over 75% of providers have signed the contract, it clearly cannot be the case contracts are not available”.
Jennifer Whitmore is a Social Democrat Councillor and member of Wicklow Council Council. She is also mother to four young children.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
How will that affect his shareholding in REIT though? Oh right it won’t because there is nowhere to rent because he and his other career politicians destroyed the rental market intentionally for the un.
@: “were turning a corner on 10/12 of undersupply”… literally admitting they didn’t do their jobs, but its all grand.
@Thesaltyurchin: yep, sure what would be the consequences to squandering billions in usury money to line his own pockets with investment and share returns. 12 years of working out ways to extort the tax payer. He does nothing other p I s s I n g on us and tell us its raining.
There should be no tax to pay for us awesome landlords
@: Yep and when you consider the housing crisis we are experiencing now was predicted over a decade ago and FFG have been the government all that time it makes one wonder what the last four Ministers of Housing were actually doing because they certainly weren’t trying to solve said crisis. Now look at us, its totally unacceptable.
This made is the definition of delusion!
@Rob Ryan: “man”
@Rob Ryan: such as those who ignore the massive increase in the delivery of housing since he became Minister ?
@Roj Blake: Where?
@David Corrigan: in some of the department figures, somewhere. Not on the ground
Mind you, they may deliver a year’s worth of their objectives in about 6 to 7 years, if we’re lucky
@Roj Blake: please tell us I need a good laugh
@Tom Newell: dont mind Stephen, he doesn’t post under his real name anymore because everyone was laughing at him for getting kicked out of FF and he still shills for them every day hahaha
@Roj Blake:
Where has Steven Kearon gone?
Since he has stopped posting under his real name you & john john have turned up with the same claptrap.
Probably just a coincidence.
@David Corrigan: Well I live in Limerick city and houses have been built and are halfway or starting on all sides of the city,plus two new secondary schools and a hospital on the southside,don’t know about the rest of the country but non stop building in Limerick.
@Daniel Roche: and how many of them are being built by the government?
@Tom Newell: Limerick city,where I live,I’m on holidays this week,more than happy to give you a tour of the houses built,half built,just starting,this is my name on Facebook if you want to organise, fully accept could be totally different across the country but there is a serious about of building works in Limerick across housing, schools, hospitals etc.
@Daniel Roche: ROFL
@Frank Cauldhame: Genuinely don’t know what that means, sorry.
@Martin Mongan: Well I haven’t seen any ministers actually building them but plenty of social housing if that is what you mean, just ten minutes walk from me,the blood mill roadmulgrave street,not enough but great to see it.
@Frank Cauldhame: Had to Google it,not sure how that is funny,I’m more than happy to give you a tour of Limerick,the question was asked where,I said Limerick city cause I’m living in Limerick city,to anyone on here more than happy to show you building works going on in Limerick and show what has been built,I didn’t vote for any of government parties but there is a huge amount of construction in Limerick and I’m happy to show anyone on here, maybe look at the facts before laughing on the floor, education is no burden.
More FFG ‘Schemes’…A few crumbs here and there to make it seem like their doing something
FFG out
Tackling the symptom instead of the disease, again.
That smacks of the usual “vote for me, the money’s great, I can’t get enough of it”
More short term fixes that do nothing more than increase the cost of renting! This does nothing to alleviate the crisis. Same as HAP. We need more supply of housing.
@Sean Murphy:
Correct, we need more builders which neither FF, SF, FG or any other party can come up with a viable solution to.
All the restof their proposals are just window dressing.
@P.J. Nolan: I’m a builder, living in London with 2 other builders from Ireland and working with plenty of other Irish builders who would come home TOMORROW if we actually had somewhere to live that didn’t involve paying over the top rents.
More public money being shifted straight into the private pockets. How long do we have to tolerate this stuff??
@Jim O’Sullivan: excellent news
they wouldn’t need this nonsense if they took the vultures on with the law’s.. but no it’ll never happen ,, this all started when the greedy decided to get rid of Bedsits in the 90′s which made many homeless and many rich … sound familiar
@Trent: bedsits have been replaced by dorms, which are a much more efficient use of space.
@brian o’leary: That’s exactly what a vulture or slumlord would say,, i hope your neither and just Naive
@Trent: you’ll find they don’t celebrate the name Michael Noonan anymore as his involvement in bringing vultures funds into the country under the circumstances they were brought in on was nothing short of economic treason.Now they’re in they’re in.FG at their very best.
@brian o’leary: Dorms? Do the residents have personal toilets/bathrooms or do 50 people share same?
Jazes.
Has their ever been a worse Housing Minister?
The will never end as long as FFFG are in power. They’ve had 100+ years and housing – like most everything in Ireland – is a catastrophe.
But “here’s 500 quid…now shut up”
@Chris O’Brien: yes, look at the Shinners in NI when they controlled housing portfolio
@Roj Blake: good man Stephen even after getting you kicked out of FF you still go on about the “shinners” hahaha
@Roj Blake: How long has the North been now without a functioning Govment? Almost like it works differently there.
Housing is not a commodity. This useless shower had little industry outside of agriculture, then the big corps and tech giants came, after 2008 housing in Ireland became the new gold standard for investment firms, laws in other countries protect the citizens from this type of skulduggery but our crowd invited them in and changed policies to keep them here. Fffg are not for the people of this country. Prove me wrong
@Tom L: oh it certainly is a commodity and I profit handsomely from the commodity :)
@Tom L: no argument here i think theyve more than proved that they do not have the interests of ordinary people at heart. Im just amazed that no one is organising protests en masse to get them out
@Nicola: and bring in the political wing of a terrorist organisation who have never run a country…..and who’s other half are doing a worse job of it up north.yeah?
@uUleRhCu: and I’ve no time for this bunch…it’s depressing.
This fella is a scrounger. We need a hand up, not another handout! It’s honestly a shocking state of affairs that the housing minister doesn’t see that these handouts aren’t solving the issue, they are prolonging it. As a renter myself, 500 quid has only knocked off a portion of a month’s rent for me. We should be in the streets trying to get FFG out, I’m sick to my teeth of reading these last ditch efforts.
@Eoghan: I would never rent to someone with a disgusting attitude like yours
There is and saying , you can’t teach a old dog new tricks . Oh yea we have an election next year
I want to see the back of FFG green muppets that’s what I want
Da** all use to OAPs!
Increase in tax credit means landlords will increase rent
I am so confused about thise announcment.
The housing body confirmed it has 4,100 new social and cost rental homes ready for construction…It said that with Government support, the organisation could deliver 700 of these new homes this year and a further 900 by the end of 2024.
So they are annoucing/celebrating planing permission now?
They will build 1300 houses in a YEAR and a half?
This sounds more like abject failure with regards to housing targets, yet they have a photo op with this?
I must be going mad. IS this genuinely what the announcment is about????
I’ve not seen one policy from FFG that will make a real difference to the housing crisis.
What would make a real difference is to reduce immigration. Start kicking out failed asylum seekers. Start kicking out people that have lost their passports at Dublin airport. Stop handing out so many visas to South Americans, Asians and Africans etc.
It really is that simple.
@Voice of Reason:
We need lots more immigration!!
Advertise in Africa, south America and Asia for labourers, put them up in log cabins and mobile homes and teach them a trade.
4or 500,000 should do the trick…….
Hopefully most will bring their families and stay
@P.J. Nolan: We need a radical overhaul of how we educate our children. Teach them trades and lifeskills instead of basing their future on an exam which is basically a memory test.
@P.J. Nolan: Most likley your being facetious and yet your kinda right here.
We need more housing to support foreign Medical proffesionals for one thing. Yet we cant bring in foreign skilled labourers as we have no where to put them.
Enact an Australian style visa program for skilled workers and students.
Problem there is we have nowhere to house them so our services will continue to suffer.
I always forget how everyone working in Irish hospitals are all Irish cos we have such an educated pool of Drs and nurses to pluck from in Ireland.
@Voice of Reason: How about we stop rewarding the indigenous population for having scrote after feckless scrote with no interest in engaging in any worthwhile trade or occupation;..generations upon generations of career benefits’ recipients contributing nothing to society.
And what about those renting houses which the landlords are not on the RTB? Which as far as I can work out are actually more than those on the RTB for the first time ever.
Second hand car sales man
Is this the “appropriate process” for requests for the budget that Michael Martin was referring to when he complaining about FG backbenchers writing opinion pieces for a newspaper? Ministers mouthing off at press events.
Why is there not a quote from Simon Harris in this article????
That would be a positive move, plus not forgetting the Shinner criminal gang wants to abolish all the measures that help ordinary working people buy their own homes.
@Roj Blake: You are more afraid of a party who have never been in power than you are two parties (FFG) who have spent 100 years proving they should be feared?
@Roj Blake: remembering that 99% of political criminality in the history of the Republic was committed by the parties this guy supports.
Because in fact he’s just a FFFG stooge, and the ONLY card he has to play is the same one the Unionists use: SF is scary.
This guy, and everyone like him, knows that as soon as SF is in power and there’s no increase in terrorism they’re all done. Forever.
@Roj Blake: For example???
@Roj Blake: You are starting to get boring!
@Roj Blake: You FFG deluded mob wouldnt know what helping people even looks like. Took the capital turning into a crime pit that dragged in tourists before your wish.com barbie of a minister reacted, the banks and developers literally own your parties and you cant go a week without embarrassing yourselves or the country
@Roj Blake: why don’t you post under your real name anymore Stephen? Is it cause people keep laughing you got ran out of FF yet still shill for them everyday online?
@Tom Newell: “barbie of a minister”? what a misogynistic comment to make
@Roj Blake: But Stephen you always use misogynistic and demeaning language!
Who cares what he says he has zero credibility now.
Does he? Brilliant. And who does he think will pay for it? A bunch of suckers who work hard and scrape by and build the future by creating families. Really, people need to pay for themselves. Sick of paying for everyone else.
Here’s a radical idea : how about the State not taking 52% of the rent in taxes ? Currently the State makes more than the landlord on a given property. The State IS the problem.
have your say