Pádraic McCormack (Galway West, Fine Gael)

The Social Welfare and Pensions Act, passed in the Dáil on 29 April abolished the early child care supplement replacing it with a one year preschool grant. The Bill was passed by guillotine at midnight that night with the result that the Fine Gael amendment dealing with this problem was not reached. Until now parents received €83 per month in child care supplement for all children up to five years of age. Since 1 May this year this has been halved to €41.50 per month until 31 December 2009. That is a loss of €249 per child. A family with four children under the age of five will be at the loss of €1,000 in the second six months of this year.

From 1 January 2010 the early child care supplement will be abolished altogether and will be replaced with the early childhood care and education scheme, a one year preschool grant. Parents will be eligible for this grant if their child is between three years and seven months and four years and ten months on 1 January and if they use child care services their child will qualify for a grant of €64.50 for 38 weeks per school year. This is equivalent to an entire child care supplement grant of €2,451 while under the old supplement of €83 per month the total was €4,980. In other words, the child care supplement has been reduced by half and parents will lose €2,529 for each child over the five year period.

The new cutbacks will put a severe strain on low and middle income families. Worse still, this is anti-family legislation. The greatly reduced rate of payment which is worth half of the old rate will be paid for only 38 weeks if the family uses child care services. If one of the parents, usually the mother, works at home and decides to keep her child at home, which is normal in many houses, the family will not qualify for any supplement so they will lose their €5,000 over the five year period. This clearly discriminates against parents who look after children at home.

If the preschool service does not register with the Health Service Executive, HSE, or the Irish Montessori Education Board, IMEB, the reduced grant will not be paid. Some preschool services may not wish to register with the scheme. Those who opt into it will have to provide services for only three hours a day five days a week for 38 weeks. If the service provider charges more than €64.50 a week over 38 weeks, or more than €48.50 a week over 50 weeks the parents will have to pay the balance. To qualify for the scheme the preschool leader must have a qualification in child care services to level five or six. I fear that many preschool service providers may opt out of the scheme which will also deny parents the preschool grant.

What about the preschool child cared for by grandparents? That is an invaluable service that many grandparents provide for parents. I went every year to my grandmother for my summer holidays and learned more there than in my first two years at school. I learned about life and how to play cards. I learned many things that could not be taught or ingrained in a person and that probably got me to where I am today. Apart from being a cost-saving exercise this is an anti-family policy whereby people who wish to care for their children at home and not send them to preschool will lose the child care supplement and will not qualify for the preschool grant. Child service providers may choose to opt out of the service. Parents cannot get the money instead of sending their child to a preschool service. If the parents were eligible to get that money then they or the child's grandmother could mind the child, which might be more beneficial in the long run to the child and to the State.

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