Why do ministers still refuse to value those parents who sacrifice a salary to rear their children?

As the ‘granny grant’ proposal comes under fire, the Green Party is calling for a solution that works for everyone

MINISTER Shane Ross and the Independent Alliance think that grandparents should spend their retirement looking after children, and that children should be left with grandparents so that Mammy and/or Daddy can go out to work.

This is the only reasonable conclusion when you think about the proposed ‘granny grant’ – a €1,000 subsidy every year for grandparents who mind their grandchildren.

While you certainly wouldn’t begrudge grandparents a payment for looking after the children, you have to ask: what about the rest of us?

Only 16% of families, according to the Central Statistics Office, use an unpaid relative or family friend as childcare. Why spend so much money on so few people? Why not make all childcare options easier? Why is the Government not supporting all families equally?

Grandparents have a special bond with their grandchildren, and all of us lucky enough to have had them in our lives look back on those times with great fondness. But, unfortunately, not every family has this option. Many, as in my own family, have far too many grandchildren to look after. What about the grandparents who are too old or infirm, and can’t look after children? What about families where grandparents have sadly passed away? Do they not deserve a helping hand?

Today, with rents in cities rising, as well as rural communities losing jobs, families are facing a lottery when it comes to housing and childcare. Many families live away from grandparents – forced out of the communities they grew up in due to rising house prices and rents, or relocating from rural Ireland in search of jobs. Many people simply do not live near grandparents.

One thing that this proposal recognises, however, is that paying for children is not as simple as putting your hand into your pocket and forking out for a crèche. It is incredibly expensive whatever route you take.

Every family deserves affordable childcare. That’s why the Government would be better off making these subsidies available directly to families, per child rather than per grandparent, so they can be supported whatever childcare arrangements they make.

Caring for children is one of the most valuable contributions any person can make within our community and we must recognise and truly support all of those who care.

Rationale

The Government’s childcare plan is simply to subsidise crèches or grandparents – the rationale being that both of these categories of care ensure that parents could go out to work.

Finland is the model the Government should be aspiring to: an increase in statesponsored crèches, for those who want to go this route, or a subsidy that goes directly to the parent, for them to use for childminders, stay-at-home parents, grandparents or other family members.

Some 70% of families have a parent caring at home, according to the CSO, and all of these families are struggling with mortgages and rents.

Are they not deserving of more support, too?

Parents who stay at home to look after children see their pension contributions reduced, their families pay more tax, and above all else, they lose an income. A survey carried out last year for the Irish Daily Mail found that 65% of the public supported subsidies for stay-at-home parents of at least the same level as crèche subsidies.

Successive governments have encroached on the position of stay-at-home parents. In the year 2000, tax individualisation was introduced, which continues to mean that a parent who forgoes an income and stays at home can no longer pass the majority of his or her tax credits to their partner. Home carer tax credit was introduced to compensate, but this comes nowhere near to making up the shortfall, meaning that earning a single income in a family can see you paying up to €4,000 more in tax per year. This home carer tax credit is also completely discriminatory, in that it only applies to married couples, not those who are cohabiting or to lone parents.

What about these parents? Are they less deserving of a dig-out than parents who leave the children with grandparents?

We need to be brave enough to trust parents and children to know what suits them best. The reality is that parents want flexibility between options. There are times where a crèche is the best option, others where a grandparent may be available, and still more where we decide to step out of paid employment to be a stay-at-home parent. As someone who has taken all of these options, I know that all cost money.

Crèche fees in some areas cost the price of a second mortgage, and this may be part of the reason that parents are using unpaid care of a grandparent. They cannot afford to leave work themselves, cannot afford to pay for a crèche and their families are left with little option.

We need to subsidise crèches properly to ensure that grandparent care truly is a choice, not an obligation.

In the past couple of years, an ‘Affordable Childcare Scheme’ was rolled out by the current Government with poor results. The system was not up and running on time, leaving crèches dealing with chaos and parents reporting that some crèches were increasing their fees.

This meant that families were not seeing any benefit whatsoever. The ‘Granny Grant’ seems like another illthought-out scheme.

Support

It is high time we had a conversation about the value of unpaid caring work in Ireland. Perhaps the referendum on a ‘woman’s place in the home’ is the opportunity to do just that. The Government wants to simply delete the reference to a woman’s place in the home from the Constitution.

Civil society groups, along with the Green Party, have strongly come out to seek an amendment to this article to recognise the value of unpaid and volunteer caring work.

Stay-at-home parents are invisible to the Government. They need to wake up, and recognise all forms of childcare.

Every family deserves equal support. Families throughout the State are struggling with the cost of bringing up the next generation – moving far from family and friends, working long hours that don’t fit into a crèche system, and paying rent to private landlords well beyond the real cost of accommodation. While payments to grandparents may have some merit, this proposal pits family against family, and makes winners and losers when it comes to childcare.