More parents in line for €145-a-week childcare payment – and those on €60,000 may qualify
MORE parents can look forward to a subsidy of up to €145 per week to cover the crippling cost of childcare as Budget talks are finalised.
Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone is battling to boost the numbers who qualify for a scheme that is currently open only to parents whose income is less than €47,500 a year.
Sources said she may seek a threshold of around €60,000, which Fianna Fáil is backing – this would bring an extra 10,000 children into the fold.
At the moment, 42,000 children benefit from the payment that ranges from €50 to €145 a week and is paid for children between six months and 15 years.
Sources said pushing up the cut-off point for this ‘targeted’ scheme was Ms Zappone’s priority at meetings with Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe.
She is also seeking hikes in a separate subsidy, that is not means-tested, for the parents of babies and pre-schoolers.
This universal subsidy, which is worth €80 a month, is available to all parents whose chil- dren are between six months and three years of age.
Fianna Fáil is pushing for this subsidy to be doubled.
It is worth up to €20 a week, or €1,040 a year, for 42,000 children.
“Minister Zappone wants as many children as possible to benefit and build on the 84,000 already enjoying extra supports,” said her spokesperson. “She remains in regular contact with Minister Donohoe.
“Since 2015 an 83pc increase in childcare investment has been achieved – with €485m this year. We must build on that. We must move forward not backwards.”
Fianna Fáil spokesperson on children and youth affairs, Anne Rabbitte, said the threshold for the targeted childcare scheme must be hiked to €60,000 “if the Government is serious about childcare”.
“They have to make it advan-
tageous for stay-at-home mums to come back into the workforce,” she said.
She said she also hoped the minister would get more than €4.4m for an early years capital programme, to build in the sector, which is the amount she received in previous budgets.
Ms Zappone has promised to turn the country’s childcare system from one of the most expensive in the world into one of the best.
She admitted this will take a number of budgets.
Childcare bills can often amount to a second mortgage for squeezed families.
The Irish Congress of Trade Unions called on the Government to expand high-qualify subsidised early years care in its pre-Budget submission.
It noted that this was recommended by the European Commission.
The document said the average family spent more than a third of their household income on childcare – twice the European average. Irish childcare costs in 2015 relative to wages were the highest in the EU for lone parents, and the second-highest for couples.