Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I argue the national childcare scheme is not fit for purpose. It does not fit the demand and it does not fit the need we have in this country. Parents will say to us it is the most convoluted, confusing and unfair system. I will give one instance, and I am picking up on a thing that comes to my attention regularly. Parents are penalised for wanting to spend more time with their children, if the children attend a school or use a childcare service. If parents collect their children early on occasion, it can trigger a massively convoluted attendance rule malarkey that not only impacts on the parents, in terms of a reduction in subsidies and increased fees for them, but it places an onerous administrative burden on the provider of the childcare. Excellent childcare providers are getting caught up in unnecessarily elaborate policing of parent's actions and they tell me they really do not want to have to do this. Why is it so unwieldy? Why are so many providers getting out of childcare provision because of this hotchpotch, convoluted malarkey they have to deal with?

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