Calls for €70 per child per week allowance for childcare

UNIONS and business group IBEC are to ask the Government to provide budget funding of €70 a week per child towards the childcare costs of 140,000 children.

An unprecedented agreement between IBEC and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) calls for the financial support to be given through a voucher system to parents with more than one child in childcare.

The proposal, which will be formally unveiled next week, would have a direct value to working parents of between €280 and €300 a month.

The voucher proposal which would be paid for by Government but distributed by employers is aimed at preventing those with more than one child pulling out of the labour force.

ICTU deputy general secretary, Sally Anne Kinahan, said research had identified that parents frequently reached a crisis point when they had to pay childcare for more than one child. Therefore the new proposal would not benefit those families with just one child in child care.

Ms Kinahan said the Government was aware of the proposal, since it had been agreed under the Sustaining Partnership agreement, and would now have to decide whether to fund the €360 million plan or not.

"The Government now has to review it and see if it is acceptable to them. The Government has been saying a huge amount about measures it's going to make in terms of making childcare more affordable.

"We know the Government is going to do something because they've suddenly realised it's a major problem. We don't know what and we're saying this is what they should do," she said.

Ms Kinahan said the proposed voucher-based system would not only apply to people who have their children in formal childcare places but also apply to people who are using informal community help such as neighbours.

With the average childcare cost per child per week at €175, the proposal is aimed at seeing 40% of that cost subsidised by the State for children up to the age of five. Between the ages of five and 12, it is envisaged that just 20% of the cost of care will be covered.

Meanwhile, ICTU's budget submission, launched yesterday, called for the Government to make a fundamental policy shift.

ICTU general secretary David Begg said it was time for the Government to shift the focus of the budget "from the requirements of the economy to the needs of society."

"In the past, we've been told we must make the money before we can spend it. Today we have the money. Today we have the opportunity to address the many serious social and structural deficits in our society," he said.

ICTU's submission also calls for most tax breaks for business to be abolished and a re-balancing of the tax system so large evaders in the building sector are clamped down on instead of PAYE workers.