Childminder registry off to slow start

A MERE 1% of the country’s 38,000 childminders have voluntarily registered with childcare committees since tax incentives for the sector were established in the last budget.

Only 318 people have signed up to the scheme, which allows tax relief on the first €10,000 income.

The figures emerged as Ireland assumed the presidency of the International Family Day Care Organisation yesterday.

Childminding Ireland has been awarded the international presidency for the next three years, during which time it hopes to promote worldwide research into the benefits of family-based childcare.

However, it wants more information available at home to small scale childminders, who have so far ignored the tax incentives designed to encourage voluntary registration.

The organisation’s chief executive Patricia Murray said it has ambitious plans for the next three years that will show how childminders have become “the backbone of the economy.”

She said: “There has been a low uptake, but I think a lot of clarity will come in the next few months, when the minister publishes a new set of National Guidelines for Childminders.”

However, Fine Gael social affairs spokesman David Stanton said it will take more than information to make the scheme attractive.

“What you have is a situation, where, if a person earns a penny more than the €10,000 disregard, they are liable for tax on the whole lot.

“We want to look at this in such a way that it gets childminders involved and registered because we have to start linking this up with quality and standards.”

Of the 318 childminders who have registered with city and county childcare committees none have done so in Cork City, Cork County, Donegal, Louth, Mayo, Roscommon, Sligo and Wexford.

There are less than five childminders who have voluntarily registered in the counties of Carlow, Dun Laoghaire Rathdown, Dublin City, Kilkenny, Laois, Limerick City, Longford, North Tipperary and South Tipperary.

Minister for children, Brian Lenihan attended the launch of the Irish presidency, in Dublin, yesterday, and said the international recognition showed how successful the country’s childminding sector was.

The Department of Children concedes that while the uptake has “not been absolutely stunning”, it is keeping the scheme under review and is willing to suggest changes for the Budget.

A spokeswoman said that childminders have until October 2007 to voluntarily sign-up.