Early Childcare Scheme problem

shayser

My son goes to two creches, one day a week each. The reason for the two creches is that his two friends (neighbours) are in one and his cousin - his best buddy, they are inseparable - is in the other. It has worked great for 18 months and he loves both.

My wife got a call from the Dept. of Health and Children today. The person told my wife in no uncertain terms to pull our son out of one of the creches. She was told that every child in the country was on this scheme and that they don't have time to be messing around with multiple creches for a single child. She really was blunt. She wanted an answer there and then. Left my wife in tears.

So, my wife named one of the creches. She was then informed that this creche would be written to with a request to return the money to the dept. and that we would have to reimburse the creche.

Have we done anything wrong in allowing our son to attend the two creches? Are "they" within their rights to ask us to reimburse the creche.

lazygal

The scheme is for a five day week. It cannot be used for two services as each service has to register the child. I don't know why the Dept were so blunt, but you cannot avail of two free places as the payment is for the place and you are taking up two of them.
If he only attends one or two days a week he is not eligilble, its for a five day service which is why many parents are coming to my five day free service instead of another four day one.
If you want to use the scheme, you must meet the criteria, as must the service and the Dept will not take personal details like buddies into account. If you have been getting a free place and were not eligilble, you must repay it any other payment from SW which you claimed but did not deserve.
Talk to the providers about this.

PS every child is not on the scheme, its based on age and other criteria such as registered services. I really doubt the Dept gave your wife that sort of info as the people running the scheme are 100% aware of what is invovled. If your child does not qualify, you pay for the service you want which suits you.

Davidth88

it's certainly wrong to be claiming twice , or rather two creches claiming on your byhalf.

However the way you have described what was done was disgusting .

Don't know what to say TBH , they are almost certainly within their rights , because one creche place was being paid for by the state mistakenly, but there are ways an means to tell you this

Ickle Magoo

You have certainly done nothing wrong in sending your child to whatever childcare you wish for however long you wish - the issue is if you are trying to avail of the childcare places being funded by the state. There is a very specific criteria that must be fulfilled so tax payers money isn't wasted on places that aren't being used.

The person who called your wife had no right to tell her to pull your son out of a crèche, or be at all rude for that matter - if you choose to keep sending your son to both at your own expense then that is perfectly fine.

I know that we had to fill out forms when the scheme came out at my daughters Montessori which we had to sign stating we were only using one facility, we had read terms and conditions, etc, perhaps they are viewing that you deliberately used the system in a way it is clearly stated it cannot be used? If you have never signed or agreed to anything with regards to the scheme at either crèche, write to the Dept and state your case.

shayser

So, it's five days or no days. Great. Nobody does bureaucracy like the Irish.

Ickle Magoo

shayser wrote: »

So, it's five days or no days. Great. Nobody does bureaucracy like the Irish.

I think it's paid to establishments by the state on numbers of hours per child per year - my daughter's Montessori is open 4 days a week but for longer and misses some holidays.

Realistically it would be a logistical nightmare to try to administrate a scheme whereby people pick and choose what days/hrs they want and the state only pays for the hours used - I imagine ensuring that it was only full places being used and paid for was one of the ways to get establishments to sign up to the scheme.

dogbert27

My interpretation of this scheme is that yeah it's 5 days or nothing with regard the placing of one child but as far as I know what this means is that child x is assigned a free place for 5 days and the creche is paid for 5 days.
Now if the parent only sends their child for 3 days and not the other 2 days the creche still gets paid for the 5 days but they are not allowed offer child's x place for the other 2 days to anybody else.
The parents can send child x to a second creche for the other 2 days but they have to pay the full fees for whatever that creche charges, i.e. the second creche cannot list child x on their role for the free scheme.

lazygal

shayser wrote: »

So, it's five days or no days. Great. Nobody does bureaucracy like the Irish.

Its a State scheme which you may or may not avail of. Like everything else funded by the State, it cannot be run on an individual basis. If you want to continue your current arrangement you can do so, but not at the expense of the State.
BTW, there should be no bureacracy for you, unlike the mountain of paperwork which the provider takes care of.