Childminder cost

monkey8

We are getting a childminder for our 16 month old, 3 days a week, 5 hours a day.
Can anybody guide me as to the going rate in cork at the moment?
We also have an 8 year old and a 5 year old who she may have to mind depending on the schools being closed or not.
How does adding extra kids of that age affect the cost?

jlm29

monkey8 wrote: »

We are getting a childminder for our 16 month old, 3 days a week, 5 hours a day.
Can anybody guide me as to the going rate in cork at the moment?
We also have an 8 year old and a 5 year old who she may have to mind depending on the schools being closed or not.
How does adding extra kids of that age affect the cost?

Is she coming to your house or are you sending your child to hers?

monkey8

jlm29 wrote: »

Is she coming to your house or are you sending your child to hers?

Sorry I forgot to say she is coming to our house

jlm29

monkey8 wrote: »

Sorry I forgot to say she is coming to our house

If she’s coming to your house, you’re her employer. You should be paying at least minimum wage, sorting tax, PRSI etc. I’ve no personal experience of this situation though!

lazygal

We employ a minder in our home. You need to add about 10% of the wage onto your costs for PRSI etc. And we decided to use a payroll company for admin of the payslips etc. You will have to register as an employer with Revenue.

mean gene

You can do that or do what most people do which is cash in hand couple a hundred I reckon

lazygal

mean gene wrote: »

You can do that or do what most people do which is cash in hand couple a hundred I reckon

You could but you'd be breaking the law.

maxsmum

lazygal wrote: »

You could but you'd be breaking the law.

The reality is that a lot of people can't afford it otherwise and that minders often prefer cash. Childcare is a huge issue in this society. It would be in the Governments best interests to invest in it to regularise this situation.

jlm29

maxsmum wrote: »

The reality is that a lot of people can't afford it otherwise and that minders often prefer cash. Childcare is a huge issue in this society. It would be in the Governments best interests to invest in it to regularise this situation.

You’re right, childcare is an issue. But it’s one thing to be paying a minder cash and sending your kids to their home. But it’s a different ballgame if you’re getting them into your own home and paying them cash.

If you are sending your children to the minder's home and paying cash, then it is the minder's responsibility to declare their income and look after their own tax affairs. None of the parents' business.

But, if the minder is coming to the children's home, then legally the minder is an employee (with the full protection of current employment law) and the parents become an employer and are responsible for everything that goes with that.

Always wisest to protect yourself (and the employee) and stay on the right side of employment law, in case the working arrangement doesn't work out for any reason.

myshirt

One child, you are talking 300 a week all in. Add in two more and you are talking 450.

That's where you should expect to land.

lazygal

maxsmum wrote: »

The reality is that a lot of people can't afford it otherwise and that minders often prefer cash. Childcare is a huge issue in this society. It would be in the Governments best interests to invest in it to regularise this situation.

Registering as an employer is how you regularise the situation. If you can't afford it use a different type of child care you can pay for.

jlm29

myshirt wrote: »

One child, you are talking 300 a week all in. Add in two more and you are talking 450.

That's where you should expect to land.

For 15 hours?

maxsmum

lazygal wrote: »

Registering as an employer is how you regularise the situation. If you can't afford it use a different type of child care you can pay for.

Well, I'm not saying I condone it personally, although we had to pay someone during the covid for a few hours and she was very much 'cash only please'. We are back to school and granny now soon but a lot of my friends aren't as lucky to have that setup.

lazygal

Our minder who minded our children in her home accepted cash. Our minder in our home is an employee regardless of her payment preferences.

myshirt

jlm29 wrote: »

For 15 hours?

Yes.

That's 20 euro an hour, plus a slight increase for the additional children. That should cover the wage, the prsi, insurance contribution, and all the bells and whistles.

Should land somewhere in and around 5% either side of those figures.

€20 an hour for one child is way off.

Even childminders in their own home don't charge that much, its usually €5 per child, per hour, and that's for a registered, garda vetted, insured and qualifed childminder. And that's in south county Dublin, where the rates are the highest in the country. Cash in hand (thought I don't recommend it) is usually cheaper.

An employer is only obliged to offer the employee minimum wage per hour or above, (rate can be negotiated) plus pay employers PRSI. They are not responsible to pay for employee's PRSI, insurance etc. The employee pays that themselves from their earnings, like everyone else does!

The only responsiblity the employer has towards those costs, is to make the deductions and transmit them to revenue, and issue a payslip.

1874

Deleted User wrote: »

If you are sending your children to the minder's home and paying cash, then it is the minder's responsibility to declare their income and look after their own tax affairs. None of the parents' business.

But, if the minder is coming to the children's home, then legally the minder is an employee (with the full protection of current employment law) and the parents become an employer and are responsible for everything that goes with that.

Always wisest to protect yourself (and the employee) and stay on the right side of employment law, in case the working arrangement doesn't work out for any reason.

Is that really the case though? couldnt the minder effectively be self employed.
Looks to me like the State gets it everyway they want, doesnt provide services, foists the responsibility solely on parents and minders to work out, collects tax and prsi off both and potentially pit parents against minders, with any potential risks associated for both those parties borne by them.

lazygal wrote: »

Registering as an employer is how you regularise the situation. If you can't afford it use a different type of child care you can pay for.

All very easy to say, Id also have said €5/hour is normal per child, we were paying €10 per hour and the minder wanted to up it, increased somewhat then they wanted an increase up to 15/hr due to what she was losing from not being paid her normal wages, told her no and we parted ways.
I worked it out and with her covid payment and what we were paying her she was earning slightly more than she would have been normally for half the hours and one child.

highly1111

I'd be paying €8 per hour for one child, €10 for 2 children and €12 for 3 children. The problem is that with so few hours it may not be worth her while - for 15 hours it's only €120 quid a week.......this is why minders often take on several children at once.

Ask her what she wants - does she want to be an employee or does she want cash? That will help with your decision.

1874

1874 wrote: »

Is that really the case though? couldnt the minder effectively be self employed.

No, they are not self employed. Minders working in the children's home are classed as domestic workers.

Citizens Information: Domestic Workers Employment Rights

From that link:

The term domestic worker refers to people employed to carry out various duties in a private home. Generally they are engaged directly by homeowners to carry out these tasks. The type of work domestic workers normally carry out include housekeeping and cleaning. Other duties may include the care of children, older people or people with disabilities. Domestic workers can work part-time or full-time and sometimes (but not always) live with their employer. Care assistants and home helps are domestic workers. You can read this leaflet on the employment rights of domestic workers (pdf).

Loubox

My daughter is 16 months old and we pay our childminder €8 an hour, she minds her in her home. She is on the dearer side but she was willing to be the most flexible so it works for us as it's shift work in my house. We send her 5 hours a day and she's minded by a grandparent in the afternoon to keep costs down.

On the flip side to this, my friend pays her childminder €35 for a full day (doesn't matter if it's school time or not) her daughter is 8 but the minder has about 7/8 children daily.

1874

Deleted User wrote: »

No, they are not self employed. Minders working in the children's home are classed as domestic workers.

Citizens Information: Domestic Workers Employment Rights

From that link:

The term domestic worker refers to people employed to carry out various duties in a private home. Generally they are engaged directly by homeowners to carry out these tasks. The type of work domestic workers normally carry out include housekeeping and cleaning. Other duties may include the care of children, older people or people with disabilities. Domestic workers can work part-time or full-time and sometimes (but not always) live with their employer. Care assistants and home helps are domestic workers. You can read this leaflet on the employment rights of domestic workers (pdf).

I honestly consider that to be the State pushing the responsibility of all costs onto a person availing of a service, for that purpose only, they arent in least bit concerned about the persons rights doing the job, they are just shifting responsibility from them to the person availing of the service.
Its the same when they interfered in au pair-ing, Ive no doubt some people took advantage of that set up, but Id estimate that its just driven it into the black economy completely.

In essence, its limiting people frm making their own arrnagements to provide and avail of care, forcing people to take their children to or avail of businesses that provide this service, it falls in line with FG (mainstream FF) methods, reduce services if they even exist and bill/tax people into submission.


Am I the employer of a person if I get someone to cut my grass? or clean my windows? or clean the chimney?


There are a ways to sort this out without having someone be another persons employer, because simply put, most people wont do this and wouldnt be able to afford to anyway.


Either the state provides comprehensive care for children of certain ages that meets requirements of the circumstances of every working 1 or 2 parent families, which seems very difficult or impossible (or they at least provide basic essential services for a set criteria),

or they regularise and simplify the means to be an employer in this scenario, because a private person hiring someone to carry out this or other tasks is not an employer in the same meaning as employees by any usual definition.

1874

1874 wrote: »

Am I the employer of a person if I get someone to cut my grass? or clean my windows? or clean the chimney?

These services would be described as "occasional" services, so do not fit under the description of a domestic worker. Its the same with an occasional babysitter, the type you hire once or twice a month, so you can go out to dinner or the cinema. I think there is a limit somewhere of a €38 weekly payment, but its deep in the rules on PRSI and I'd have to search for it.

But once you hire someone to come into your home and work a set number of hours per week, like the OP is looking for, then the rules for domestic workers apply. Such a service requires a contract and payment is obviously going to be over €38 a week.

This is the law on childminders working in the childrens' home, as it stands today, and yes, it is the same for au-pairs, as was clarified by the rulings of the cases taken by aupairs to the WRC.

In fairness, from friends who've done it, I believe its not complicated at all to register as an employer and Revenue are very efficient at setting it all up once you decide to do it. After that, all you need is some software to generate a payslip (probably get one free online) and you're good to go.

Sleeper12

Deleted User wrote:

€20 an hour for one child is way off.

Deleted User wrote:

Even childminders in their own home don't charge that much, its usually €5 per child, per hour, and that's for a registered, garda vetted, insured and qualifed childminder. And that's in south county Dublin, where the rates are the highest in the country. Cash in hand (thought I don't recommend it) is usually cheaper.

You are confusing two different things here.

Minding a child in your own home you can earn 15k tax free. As a result many do charge 5 euro per hour. The childminder might be minding several kids from different families as well as their own kids.

A childminder in your home is your employee. You have to pay holiday pay & bank Holidays. You have to pay at least minimum wage however the going rate is between 15 and 20 per hour. When you factor in holidays and bank holiday etc then the cost per will be in excess of 20 per hour. You also pay for the nanny car insurance for the child minder even if they use their own car.

Pinoy adventure

15 hours at €15 per hour is €225 per week.you also have too consider there travel time/cost too and from your home

maxsmum

Pinoy adventure wrote: »

15 hours at €15 per hour is €225 per week.you also have too consider there travel time/cost too and from your home

I don't know of any employer who is obliged to pay for travel costs to and from work, that's crazy

Sleeper12

Sleeper12 wrote: »

You are confusing two different things here.

Minding a child in your own home you can earn 15k tax free. As a result many do charge 5 euro per hour. The childminder might be minding several kids from different families as well as their own kids.

A childminder in your home is your employee. You have to pay holiday pay & bank Holidays. You have to pay at least minimum wage however the going rate is between 15 and 20 per hour. When you factor in holidays and bank holiday etc then the cost per will be in excess of 20 per hour. You also pay for the nanny car insurance for the child minder even if they use their own car.

I'm not confusing anything, I was making a comparison between the cost of a minders working in the child's home, and the rates of a minder working from their own home. Sorry if that wasn't clear. I myself pointed out earlier in the thread the differences between a minder in their own home, and a minder in the childrens' home.

Wage per hour for the employee is negotiable, starting at minimum wage. Yes, with an employee you do have to allow for paid holidays, but you only have to pay for bank holidays if the employee was scheduled to work on the day the bank holidays fall on (e.g. most fall on Monday).

AFAIK, the cost of insuring a car for child minding purposes is about €200 per year on top of their private quote - at least these are the prices I've seen quoted from childminders, and only in the case of a minder working from their own home. €200 is a fiver a week.

Basically, anyone who wishes to employ a minder in their own home will have to sit down and do the maths, over 52 weeks of the year and see where the numbers fall for them.

A childminder in your own home is probably the most expensive option for a family with only 1 or 2 children, but once you've 3 or more, they become much more competitive. For less than 3 children, personally I'd go with a minder who works from their own home.

(eta) just to add on the subject of paid holidays, any registered childminder who works from their own home that I've ever dealt with had paid holidays and paid bank holidays included in their contract, and factored car insurance into their rates.

Pinoy adventure

Pinoy adventure wrote: »

15 hours at €15 per hour is €225 per week.you also have too consider there travel time/cost too and from your home

Rubbish, is your employer paying your costs of driving to work? This is absolutely not something to consider.