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THE CHIEF-DESIGNATE of the Child and Family Agency Gordon Jeyes has said he will prioritise the introduction of a “significant registration fee” for all early childhood services.
Writing in today’s Irish Times, he said such services should not be solely dependent on taxpayers and that childcare centres making money should be contributing to the regulation and improvement of a sector in which they have “insufficiently invested”.
The money would be put towards funding training and extra services.
In the opinion piece, entitled ‘How I plan to reform our deficient childcare system’, he promised to put all reports online as they are completed and create a “clear national picture” with the last 18 months of inspections.
He described himself as “impatient” to get these actions underway.
“To date the predominant motivation in the development of childcare services has not been the social good but rather the economic necessities for parents, for the home and for employment,” he wrote.
The Child and Family Agency is expected to be established within weeks.
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Yet another Quango!
And the parents will pay this significant registration fee indirectly!
Just thinking that myself.
All a significant registration fee will do is increase costs for parents.
What they need to do is deduct the registration fee at source from the early childcare allowance that the crèche receives from the government.
Spot on OU, the lack of foresight in this idea is proof of exactly what’s wrong with the way this country is run, over and over again
Fantastic. This Government’s answer to everything – impose more charges on anybody and everyone. That will really help to increase wages, and training opportunities, for childcare staff. Meanwhile, I see in the papers that the Government INCREASED the child to adult ratio last year from ten to eleven!! ‘Nuff said.
Like the banks, the crèche owners will simply pass it onto the parents in higher fees
Establish community crèches where required, this is the way forward, not for profit properly run crèches with some parent involvement.
But why should someone who does not put their child into a crèche, subsidise someone who does
We subsidise the for profit crèches, is that right?
No Frank it’s not right. If you want to have kids be prepared to pay for their cate.
That’s a ridiculous argument. Why should people who don’t have children subsidise schooling or 3rd level education? Why should people who don’t use library’s subsidise them? It’s called being part of society!!
Because the parents who work ( and therefore need crèche’s ) are subsidising all those that don’t work and just get free money
@whippiegirl11.. I don’t think that was her point. Her point was stating that creches and early childhood education shouldn’t become nationalised as it would be too expensive especially when a large amount of parents don’t want to use creches..
Given a choice I don’t think any parent would WANT to spend €1000 a month on a service which in other EU countries costs €200 if both parents work. Parents who use creche’s generally don’t have a choice, just like I don’t have a choice where my PRSI or PAYE contributions end up. If both parents work full time and therefore pay a lot of tax there should be a better system in place to help them with their childcare like in other EU countries, not the system like it is here which basically makes low to middle income earners think twice to actually bother going to work when half their salaries have to go to some profit driven crèche.
If only it was as little as half their wages, I know plenty if working mums who pay well over 2/3 of their takehome pay on childcare, myself included !
We subsidise putting insulation in the attic so why not crèches?
Child care workers are one of the lowest paid sectors, creche fees for parents are a hugh hole in disposable income and the solution is tax the company whose only goal is profit. Wonder who that proposal would impact?
CCTV footage in creches is the answer not another expensive Quango with another self regarding hack at its head who things the imposition of more fees/ charges/taxes/regulation is the answer to everything where in reality, the prime directive of all quangos is to make sure change doesn’t happen so their existance can continue to be justified.
Absolutely pointless move and a typical knee jerk reaction. It will favour the big operators over the smaller ones. Something tells me that if you can afford to set up unlimited companies in the Isle of Man and complex company shareholding structures then this larger fee would be small change to you. It could also mean that instead of upping salaries to get better staff that the money goes to a registration fee. Nobody benefits.
Why should the taxpayer subsidie creches? Why should I pay towards the care of working parents children? I really don’t get it.
No Ciaran, you really don’t get it
Some day soon …
Why not real time secure access to webcams in each creche that adults/inspectors can log into. That also are recorded for x period of time? Make too much sense? Too easy ?
I don’t think I’d want anyone with a password staring at my kid.
I’m all in for keeping the video on file for inspectors though.
Ok agree….. principal I mean. The cabability to be monitored real time with no warning and no visible presence of inspectors when staff will ensure they are on their best behavoir
Ridiculous idea …… all of this neglect and abuse stems from turning creches into commercial ventures so what now make it worse???????
While I do agree this is a bad idea, I don’t think running them as private ventures is necessarily wrong.
Imagine if they were run like our hospitals…
If its a private operation earning money I believe it already contributes by paying corporation tax, rates, water charges, income tax, Prsi for its employees. I may be wrong but I am sure Montessori schools pay for the HSE inspectors to come out.
So essentially our governments response is to create a new agency to do a job the HSE and social protection where supposed to be doing already. And use it to justify squeezing more money off hard working business owners, due to the actions of a minority and not to mention the previous government groups not doing their jobs.
The reward for being one of the good guys that does things by the books is more of your money taken, and most likely closures and lay offs in this area.
Just as our taxes were to be used for roads etc. now we are being told to fill our own potholes, so it will be with crèches. Creches will be taxed but the fees for the parents will still rise yearly and services will not improve. Soon the Govt. will say it is up to the parents to staff them voluntarily and fund them while they spend the taxes collected on their own expenses. Politicians never miss a chance to impose a tax.
As a government supporter even I think this idea of charging private Crèches is plain stupid.
More taxes for government to set up more committees. Maybe if they actually went an inspected the places more we would be better off. All this extra charge will mean is more fees for parents and more committees for the
On the comments on Community Crèches enclosed is the breakdown of grants. http://www.dcya.gov.ie/documents/childcare/CCSdocsOCT/CCSBandsandRatesOct.pdf.
Until recently I have links to the running of a Community Crèche and I feel this scheme needs massive reform as well.
Firstly we are building Crèche ghettos where parents who are lower paid have to go to Community Crèches, where parents without grant aid can make a choice between private and public Crèches. The government should stop making the decision for the parents. The parents should be free to take the grant aid and decide which Crèche best suits their needs. What happens if you get bad service in the Community Crèche of there is no Community Crèche near to you. The government should allow parents make the decision what is best for their kids not some Committee.
The other stupid item is when a person starts to earn their grant for childcare goes down, the more hours you take on at work the more the Crèche costs in the Community sector. Yet again a block by the government in people returning to work.
I have used both Community and private Crèches (three young kids), I like the idea of my kids mixing with all social classes. Kids are kids and the parent’s employment status should not be a factor.
We moved Crèches because we were not happy with the service, however if I was unwaged this could not have happened as we would have lost our grant aid.
The answer to Crèches is not more state taxes, it is parents demanding better services (waged or unwaged) with proper inspections. If parents are not happy the must be allow withdraw from the service.
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