Greens unveil €1.12bn childcare policy

PARENTS would get an allowance of up to €150 per child a month as part of a Green Party initiative aimed at helping low income families.

The €1.12 billion package unveiled yesterday would also see a statutory right to six months' parental benefit and free pre-school education for all children.

The €150 benefit would fall to €100 a month once the child entered pre-school and be paid until the age of 12 whether parents worked or not.

The childcare drive would also see maternity benefit extended from 18 to 26 weeks.

Free pre-school education of 18.5 hours a week would be available for the year before children start classes fully, at a cost of €136 million. Paid paternal leave would be extended to two weeks.

Childminders would also receive a tax-free allowance of €5,000 per child for up to three children as part of the plan.

Green TD and family affairs spokesman Dan Boyle said the €1.12bn package had been fully costed by the Finance Department and would be paid for from existing resources and by ending property tax credits totalling €500m.

Mr Boyle said the Green initiative was aimed at doing what was best for the child and family and not focused on getting as many people back to work as possible.

"We are putting children at the very heart of our considerations. The economic basis of our thinking on childcare is to firstly give appropriate recognition to those parents who choose to and are able to spend as much time as possible with their children in a home environment," he said.

"We also want to formally recognise the thousands of childminders, many of whom are part of extended families," said Mr Boyle.

The party's childcare spokeswoman Bronwen Maher said parents were best placed to judge what type of childcare they needed.

"The feeling I'm getting, particularly from women, is that they're being straitjacketed into conforming to a certain type of lifestyle.

"Different children have different needs, some children love going to childcare - another child might be more suitable to one-on-one support," she said.

The parental allowance tax credit would only be paid in full to those on the 20% tax rate, with payment to those on the 42% rate dependent on the level of other tax credits used.