Fiona O'Loughlin (Kildare South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Fianna Fáil Party supports the introduction of the Childcare Support Bill 2017. The Bill takes an important step towards bringing Ireland into line with international best practice on investment in early years care and education, which is extremely important. As a result of the legislation, more children will be able to access an affordable and quality child care service.

My party also has some concerns about the Bill. Parents and child care providers have been waiting for this legislation since it was first announced in the budget before last. The Bill will enable the operation of the single affordable child care scheme, which will consolidate current child care subsidy schemes in a single streamlined schemes, providing targeted subsidies for lower income families and a universal subsidy for middle income and other families. This is extremely important. It will also provide much needed assistance to parents for whom child care costs now equate to a second mortgage. Not a day or week passes that I do not speak to people who are trying to make ends meet. I am referring to families with two incomes who must pay a mortgage, public transport costs and child care costs. Many of them are living hand to mouth. At the same time, the operators of child care facilities are not making substantial profits and those working in the child care sector are not well paid. There are, therefore, many difficulties in the sector.

A previous speaker referred to commercial rates. As with schools, child care facilities provide a much needed service. Apart from caring for children while their parents are at work, they provide a social and educational service that is very important for children and should be viewed in that light. It is wrong that they receive high commercial rates bills. Under current legislation, child care facilities must be made secure for the children who use them, which is very important but also costly. When one adds rates bills to the many other costs child care providers face, it becomes very difficult for good people to stay in the business. We need a sustainable and affordable system that will work well for parents, children and operators.

As Deputy Rabbitte outlined, Fianna Fáil is disappointed with the manner in which the child care measures have been handled. The delay in delivering the new scheme has caused significant uncertainty for parents and providers and prevented as many as 9,000 families from availing of the promised level of subsidy, which is not good enough. The Government promised to deliver these measures by September 2017. Owing to delays in producing the legislation and introducing information and communications infrastructure, the measures have still not been delivered. Even now, in January 2018, doubts remain about when the scheme will be delivered. This is causing great uncertainty and inconvenience for parents and child care providers alike and is indicative of a lack of joined-up thinking and forward planning.

This month, the Minister finally approved the request for tender stage of the affordable child care scheme, meaning that almost 18 months after the the scheme was announced, the tendering process has only now begun.

As matters stand, the affordability and sustainability of child care provision in Ireland leaves much to be desired. Whereas the OECD average for expenditure on child care is 12.6% of net family income, in Ireland the figure stands at 27.4% or more than double the OECD average. As I indicated, this often amounts to the cost of a mortgage, which means that for many families, more than 50% of disposable income, that is, income after tax, USC and PRSI, is spent on mortgage payments and child care costs. Despite the high costs to families, many child care providers struggle to pay themselves a wage. I know of some people working in child care who are not paying themselves a wage and are struggling to maintain a sustainable service. The current system is clearly not working for anyone.

In some areas, there is a lack of competition and transparency in the child care sector. There are 19,358 children waiting for a child care place and many crèches do not display their prices, making it difficult for parents to shop around for a provider. To help partly address this issue, my colleague, Deputy Anne Rabbitte, will introduce a Bill to make it mandatory for providers to display their prices online.

The scheme applies to only a small subset of families, namely, those who use registered crèches as their main mode of child care. Only 13% of children aged under 12 years attend a crèche or after-school facility, with a further 13% of families reliant on paid relatives or childminders for their child care needs. This issue must be addressed. Depending on the nature of the parents' work, a crèche may not work for them and they must find alternative forms of child care. As the Minister has mandated that subsidies be paid only for registered crèches and childminders, of whom there are only approximately 500 in the entire country, she has effectively excluded 13% of children from the scheme. I am also concerned that the scheme, as proposed, will harm the most vulnerable children by reducing the number of hours of free or subsidised child care they are eligible to receive.

My party colleagues spoke about some of the other pertinent issues and I will address the important issue of the lack of choice. The plan, as outlined, will not allow parents to have much choice and flexibility regarding child care arrangements. To avail of the subsidy, parents must have all their child care provided in centre-based care. Many child care facilities have, understandably, very strict opening and closing times and do not offer any flexibility for parents who are caught in traffic on their way home from work or who may have to work late. I have in mind, for example, people who work in Leinster House who often work late by virtue of the work we do and our working hours. One need only imagine the rush home to collect a child from child care.

On that point, I note the fees have gone up by €500 a month in the Oireachtas crèche. I understand those who use the crèche, staff and Members, got a letter to that effect on Monday. Where is the equity in that?

I return to the general scheme. Fewer than 20% of children at present are cared for full time in crèches. The remainder are cared for by other childminders. There is no provision for these families. That has to be dealt with. Parents will have no choice or flexibility. They cannot opt to use a mix of centre-based care or informal at-home care, such as by a childminder or relative, or both. They will be restricted by availability, opening time and closing times and the mode of child care. Fianna Fáil believes we should examine the means to support these families, possibly through the use of a tax credit.

In respect of capacity, because the scheme allows no choice or flexibility, it also relies heavily on the availability of crèche capacity in an area. Some crèches are already struggling to meet demand for places arising from the expansion of the early childhood care and education, ECCE, scheme. This scheme could double or triple demand for child care places in crèches, nurseries and Montessori schools. Pobal estimates there could be as many as 19,357 children waiting for a child care place. For example, my own brother was waiting for a number of months prior to Christmas for child care places for his three children.

We need to look at impacts in respect of the issue of flexibility but there is great urgency in this regard as we have had delays of 18 months. It is particularly important as we come up to September, when other children start primary and secondary school. It is also when children start in child care and crèches. I urge the Minister to make sure everything is in place and to look at the flexibility around the arrangements.

See this speech in context