Cormac Devlin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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567. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if he will consider bringing forward supports, including tax relief, for individuals who employ childminders, as part of Budget 2024, as a way to relieving pressure on crèche places; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22610/23]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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The main route through which parents are subsidised for their early learning and childcare costs is the National Childcare Scheme. The Childcare Support Act 2018, which provides a statutory basis for the National Childcare Scheme, specifies that only Tusla-registered providers are eligible to participate in the Scheme. The limitation of public funding schemes to Tusla-registered childcare providers helps to ensure that public funding is provided where there is assurance of the quality of provision. While only a small number of childminders (who work in their own home) are currently required to register with Tusla under the Child Care Act 1991, it is intended that the National Action Plan for Childminding 2021-2028 will result in the opening up of the National Childcare Scheme to a much wider cohort of childminders. As well as supporting quality childminding and reducing costs to parents, widening access to regulated childminding may also be an effective means of helping to address issues of supply and access.

The National Action Plan for Childminding commits to opening the National Childcare Scheme to childminders at the earliest possible opportunity, though it will be necessary first to develop and introduce childminder-specific regulations, and to give childminders adequate time and support to meet regulatory requirements.

Phase 1 of the Plan, which began in 2021, involves the development of childminder-specific regulations, and removal of legal exemptions from regulation for childminders, with the aim of supporting childminders to enter the regulated sector, the sphere of quality assurance, and access to Government subsidies. It is envisaged that registration will open to childminders in 2024 followed by an extended transition phase of several years, to allow childminders a lead-in time for regulatory requirements.

The National Action Plan distinguishes childminding which involves care in the childminder’s home from care that takes place in the child’s home, which may be carried out by a nanny, an au pair or a babysitter. The employment relationship and the legal and regulatory context are different. Whereas a childminder working from the childminder’s own home is typically self-employed and offers a service that may be accessed on a public basis, someone caring for a child in the child’s own home is regarded as an employee of the child’s parents. In addition, the employment of someone in the child’s home may involve a combination of caring with other roles, e.g. cleaning or other domestic duties. Furthermore, because they work in the parents’/child’s home rather than their own home, au pairs and nannies cannot be held responsible for the safety or suitability of that home for the purpose of early learning or childcare.

In scope, therefore, the National Action Plan mainly addresses self-employed childminders who work in their own home. The National Action Plan is not primarily concerned with nannies or au pairs, who are employees of a child’s parents / guardians. The National Action Plan does, however, include an action to develop information and training resources in relation to the use of nannies and au pairs.

Regarding tax relief for parents for early learning and childcare, research by the Inter-Departmental Group (IDG) on Future Investment in Childcare has shown that supply-side measures (such as the National Childcare Scheme), rather than tax credits to parents, represent the most effective use of Exchequer investment in relation to childcare. This conclusion was based on international experience and on the ability to leverage quality and control fees for parents through supply-side measures, i.e. subsidies paid directly to providers to reduce the childcare fee to parents. For this reason, the National Childcare Scheme is the primary mechanism for supporting affordability for parents, and the National Action Plan for Childminding aims to enable more childminders to take part in the National Childcare Scheme over the coming years. While there is no tax relief for childcare costs for parents, a tax relief scheme is available for childminders themselves (the Childcare Services Relief).