Plan to extend care subsidies ‘would save parents €4.5k’

EXTENDING childcare subsidies to carers who aren’t registered with Tusla would save parents €4,500 a year and free up thousands to return to the workforce, a new report claims.

Places for children with unregistered childminders do not attract the same National Childcare Scheme (NCS) funding for parents as crèche places, which are limited and often difficult to secure.

The NCS subsidy, which is not means-tested, is worth €1.40 per hour for a maximum of 45 hours a week, totalling €63 or almost €3,300 if used all year. This means a mother-oftwo on an average annual wage of €45,000, and paying €24,000 per year for childcare, is left with just €235 per week after paying taxes and childcare fees, according to the study by Chartered Accountants Ireland. That amount ‘makes returning to the workforce a difficult economic proposition’, it says.

It claims that speeding up Government plans to enable parents who use childminders who are not registered with Tusla to access the NCS would give parents easier access to subsidised childcare, benefiting up to 80,000 children.

Although using non-Tusla-registered childminders could cause worries for some, parenting expert Laura Erskine said most parents choose their childcare and baby-sitters through personal recommendations from people they know and trust, so it would not be an issue.

Mother-of-three Ms Erskine, spokeswoman for The Parenting Experts, said: ‘Most parents tend to go on personal recommendations from neighbours and friends and family.

‘They’re usually parents themselves so there’s an element of trust there established already. As it’s never been their formal job in a career sense, they’ve never gone to the effort of registering with Tusla and the process of registering with them is very arduous.’

Chartered Accountants Ireland’s head of tax and public policy lead, Cróna Clohisey, said: ‘We know what the challenges are for providers and parents and we welcome the upcoming increases to NCS subsidies. But as a mother of two young children, I’ve seen first-hand the difficulties in securing crèche places, the scramble to find a childminder, and the quest to make full-time employment viable for parents.’

She added: ‘The policy tools to address these are already largely in place, so it is time to move to solutions mode.

‘Implementation and awareness are the two major hurdles that need to be overcome, and bolder interventions are now required if effective change is to be achieved in the childcare space. That is where we are now focusing our attention in our proposals to the Government.’

Tusla is the independent watchdog of childcare and ‘promotes and monitors the safety and quality of care and support of children’.

Last month, Chartered Accountants Ireland published figures that highlighted the challenge of the costs and availability of childcare to businesses and working parents. The organisation is calling on the Government to speed up plans to extend the subsidy to non-Tusla-registered childminders.

Its president, Sinéad Donovan, said: ‘Allowing childcare challenges to persist constricts labour market capacity, narrows the tax base through lower labour market participation, and maintains the gender pay gap by making it more difficult for parents, proven to be predominantly women, to return to the workforce full-time.’

Ms Donovan said that currently, Chartered Accountants Ireland members ‘are being asked to vote on a proposal to amalgamate with CPA Ireland, which, if passed, would create the largest single accountancy body on the island of Ireland’.

‘Issues such as childcare can only truly be solved through a whole-of-government strategy, which is why a single, strong voice for the profession will be crucial in the years to come,’ she added.

Registering ‘is very arduous’ ‘It’s time to move to solutions’