Cianan Brennan: Parents and childcare workers won't be getting any help for a year
Cianan Brennan: Our family is now paying as much for three in childcare as we were for two. Pictures: Moya Nolan
There are different ways of looking at childcare fees and provision in Ireland. You can compare what we have, to what we should have, to what we did have.
What we currently have isn’t amazing, but what we had before core funding was introduced in September 2022 was quite awful.
The problem with this budget is, we’re going to be stuck with the status quo for another 12 months. That’s not what was promised.
Parents weren’t expecting a 25% decrease in fees. They were expecting a decrease alright, but as things stand, they’ll get nothing until next September.
Children ’s Minister Roderic O’Gorman can spin that whatever way he likes — and he certainly didn’t appear in the mood for self-reflection on yesterday evening — but he has effectively delivered nothing in real terms for parents under the cosh at a period of some of the highest inflation seen in decades.
As a father of three kids under six, childcare has played an enormous role in my life for the past five years, and will likely do so for at least another three.
Last year’s reduction in fees was incredibly welcome.
To give an indicator: Our family is now paying as much for three children in care as we previously were for two.
That’s not to be sniffed at. So while we’re still paying the equivalent of a second mortgage, well over €1,800 per month, at least it isn’t a second mortgage completely beyond our means.
I wasn’t expecting fees to drop much further (though it certainly would have been welcome). But I was expecting something.
However, I’d have accepted that if at the same time providers were catered for in the budget.
After years of depending on the sector, I really feel that a long-term vision is needed to ensure its viability, and dropping fees further for those with children already in care, while important, didn’t need to be the priority for the Government.
What should have been the priority was ensuring the viability of the services that we already have, and creating scope for new ones.
As it happens, it turns out that neither parents nor services were the priority.
That’s not great now.
In Dublin, Cork, and Limerick, childcare spaces are at a premium, with the lack of baby rooms (dedicated rooms for babies under one year of age which cost more to staff) a symptom of just how hard it can be to get on the first rung of the childcare ladder.
When it comes down to it, a lack of services is the real issue. If there aren’t any services, then it doesn’t matter how little the ones which do exist are charging.
The Government claims that the issues surrounding closures etc are being exaggerated by providers, but I’m not so sure that’s the case, especially with smaller businesses.
The creche which has taken care of all three of my children in their littlest years is such a small business, one which treats the kids like their own, one I wouldn’t trade for the world.
It would be a travesty if it were ever to go to the wall because big faceless chains are deemed to be the future of childcare by a state which, lest we forget, managed to let the situation get completely out of hand in the first place before belatedly taking a hand last year.
In summary, a little more money in parents’ pockets would have been nice, a lot more money for providers would have been ideal.
In the end, we got neither, and as a consequence, the Government has just thoroughly ticked off both groups.
And they will be two important voting cohorts come election time.
