Creches closing for 3 days from today

Pat201

https://www.rte.ie/news/munster/2023/0926/1407342-creche-owner-shannon/

Just opening a discussion to see what peoples opinions are on creches closing over funding.

I'm not really aware of all the issues but I do not really understand the issue with funding being a problem. In my area of Kildare , Creche fees are at 1100-1300 a month and only full time is being offered. Creches are impossible to get due to such high demands so you would imagine that there would be good profit being made at moment but not according to this report. Is the Overheads so high in creche industry that 1100 per child cannot cover insurance and staff wages ?

I have also noticed that Childcare at home seems to becoming a hindrance to system. A lot of ex Creche workers are now advertising to take care of kids in their home at quite high prices. For instance a person may have 3 kids at 10 per hour for an entire day. If they did a 8 hour day that means that they will pull in 240 euros for the day. After doing that 5 days a week for a year that would mean a total gross wage of 62 400. They are supposed to then do their own taxes but you can definitely see why this would be way more appealing than working in a creche that may offer a job at ~ 35k.

Anyone more knowledgeable about what is going wrong with the sector at the moment ?

Pat

HerrKuehn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058315512/creches-closing-for-3-days-from-today

It seems to be the creches like the funding, but don't like having to cap their fees to get it. I think the whole thing is really a push to eventually get the state to pay for everyone's childcare, which I don't agree with personally.

doc22

Massive house so mustn't be too bad

rob316

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058315512/creches-closing-for-3-days-from-today

35k? Its a minimum wage job, you'd get more in McDonalds. Its a joke

rob316

Its absolutely boils my piss too that childcare is not properly funded, the parents using them are only using them as both parents work, breaking their bollox to pay effectively a 2nd mortgage while paying huge amounts of tax. They should get adequate childcare as a minimum.

enricoh

Creches closing left , right and centre tells you all you need to know. Crap subsidy from government and endless forms to fill.

Staff would be miles better off on the dole n minding a few kids at home. Owners would be miles better off with bunk beds n refugees.

HerrKuehn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121160035#Comment_121160035

Well, what are you suggesting? That everyone else paying tax should pay for their childcare?

rob316

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121160104#Comment_121160104

If the private childcare sector falls down you'll have alot of people not able to work. What choice does the government have but fund it properly.

HerrKuehn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121160131#Comment_121160131

Parents can fund it properly. Parents are the ones that benefit. People will find a way, through working different times to their partners, share childcare with friends etc.

Mr. CooL ICE

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121160236#Comment_121160236

Do you have children?

HerrKuehn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121160258#Comment_121160258

Yes.

rob316

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121160236#Comment_121160236

Deluded if you believe that.

HerrKuehn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121160278#Comment_121160278

If you have "free" childcare, you will have people who were otherwise making do availing of it. The demand will increase, which will increase cost.

rob316

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121160294#Comment_121160294

Who said free? The subsidy hasn't been increased since 2018 while ever other cost has increased. There issue is quite valid

Overheal

Insurance companies are vultures TBF. A nice socialist country like Ireland could probably manage to reign that in if its excessive. Premiums have a habit of creeping up fast.

Allinall

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121160339#Comment_121160339

About the same rate as claims.

Jequ0n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121160001#Comment_121160001

That’s something to consider when choosing a “career” though.

rob316

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121160440#Comment_121160440

That's all well and good telling the workers you should of picked a better paid job but we still need childcare workers.

If you or anyone else is ok with people looking after you children are been paid less than someone stacking a shelf in Aldi it's a sad state of affairs

Jequ0n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121160492#Comment_121160492

Then pay them more privately. It’s your choice.

sekond

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121160334#Comment_121160334

What subsidy? The one for parents? It nearly tripled this year. https://www.ncs.gov.ie/en/latest-news/

Pat201

At 1100 euro a child is that not enough to cover costs and pay staff well ? What is the big expense for childcare ? I assume insurance but how much is it in reality ?

In my opinion we need more creches and more regulation in childminding at home as there are hundred available to child mind but you cannot get a creche for love nor money

Gatling

In some cases it's been over regulation has created knock on effects for some especially when creches opened over the last 5 years and then someone comes along and decided they need to change the standards around fire safety, general health and safety,then comes the admin side of things I know a manager of a site and the amount of admin for a 2 room creche is mad , then comes the qualifications for staff, it used to be pretty much none and then they brought in various courses needed to be done and then moved up to QQI lv5 in Child care which is considered a major award usually done over 2 years part time on your own time while having a family and bills to pay and with that you end up on nothing more than minimum wage despite the responsibility and paperwork involved from observations to other administrative stuff,now they are expected to get QQI lv6 qualifications for the same money on your own time, insurance is going up year in year out while court handing out large claims for minor incidents, some girls have gone and gotten degrees in Child care and they barely get much more money than someone with a lv5 their rooms get an increase in fundings ,

While others are paying thousands others are paying next to nothing if I remember correctly up until recently there was 40 different payment bands for parents depending on welfare, medical cards to earning used for calculations ,

mrslancaster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121161215#Comment_121161215

Obviously not when all the costs are included. It's not only normal staff pay, there's employers prsi, pay for additional staff to cover holidays or sick time. In other businesses staff can be flexible and take on a bit of extra work or the work can wait until an employee on leave or out sick returns - that's not possible in childcare. For example, if a service has a full room with the correct staff ratio to children, extra staff are needed to cover breaks and lunch times. There's no way one person could spend a full day with 8 kids of 3-6 years on thier own, staff are entitled to tea breaks as well as lunch breaks.

Childcare workers are qualified professionals and the responsibility of looking after someone else's child is huge even though many still see them as overpaid babysitters. Then there's the cost of staff who do all the paperwork and admin, food-prep, cleaning, and a manager to actually run the creche. Childcare staff don't look after children and then somehow fit-in all those non-childcare activities as well - someone has to do and be paid for that work.

There's normal business costs like premises rent or mortgage, insurance, light & heat, repairs & maintenance, replacement of toys and equipment, arts & crafts supplies, food supplies, staff training, website & security costs, association fees, legal and accountancy fees, the list goes on and on.

People think running a small business is difficult eg a coffee shop, small retail business, other service businesses like a hairdresser, plumbing, electrician for example, but those sectors are a walk in the park compared to a creche. Providing a childcare service is like having three separate types of business under one roof. There's the education bit (learning the abc's etc), the hospitality bit (providing safe healthy nutritious food and drink, dietary awareness) and the health & wellbeing bit (care/comfort, leisure/play, sleep/rest, health & safety, psychosocial development etc). Each of those specific areas have different regulations and standards in addition to normal business regulations plus there are extra regulations that are specific only to childcare services. On top of all that, creche owners have a mountain of paperwork and other rules to meet in order to avail of any government subsidy, it's complicated and time consuming. It's not a bit surprising that so many creche's are closing - it is an extremely stressful and expensive business to run.

Agree that creche fees are high and I have huge sympathy for parents of young children trying to pay the fees (we are past the creche stage thankfully). High standards, regulation and high quality costs, and the old days of paying babysitter rates for an unqualified person to look after our children are long gone. Creches are highly regulated, the staff must be qualified and rightly so, our children deserve to be cared for in a safe and nurturing environment but the flip side of that is - it costs parents more. The only alternative is that the state starts to heavily subsidises childcare or we will see more and more creches closing down which doesn't help anybody.

Cookie_Monster

Creches are subsidised and there is children's allowance as it is, how much more do ppl want to dump on top rather than address background issues and understand why it's not enough.

The article is completely lacking in any hard data or numbers, makes it very hard to actually understand where the creches are coming from with an actual understanding of income and expense and whether more income is the answer or should the govt be focusing on costs like insurance and driving that down to save everyone money rather than hand out even more and drive inflation further.

kowloonkev

I know it would likely never happen in an EU controlled state, but it would be good if Ireland could recruit foreign workers for less than minimum wage.

In HK for example, the majority of working couples can easily afford to have a nanny living in their home to take care of children as well as other household work. It costs them around €650-750 per month.

These ladies come from places like the Philippines where they have excellent English and where €700 a month is a high salary.

Although I doubt most Irish people would want a live-in nanny they could also be recruited for crèches and I'm sure they'd be treated better in Ireland than HK. It'd be a win win for all concerned if a scheme like it was created.

RiseToMe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121162070#Comment_121162070

And that's called exploitation

rob316

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121162027#Comment_121162027

Thanks for taking the time to post all that, as I thought sounds like an incredibly tough business to run.

Deeec

I used a crèche service for 10 years for my 3 children. My observations are the following.

- I do agree that childcare workers need to be paid more however childcare will never be a highly paid job. Those that enter the sector do need to accept this.

- the results of education and qualifications of staff are not visible ie. No difference in quality of care between a qualified worker and someone unqualified. Being perfectly honest a 6 week course would be enough to train a childcare worker. These essential 'qualifications' are blocking people from working in the sector and perhaps are causing unrealistic salary expectations for some. Of course ecce teachers are the exception to this.

- the owner of the crèche my kids attended was extremely poor at paperwork, calculations etc. She was a good childcare provider but a very poor manager. Even finding out changes in payments due to ecce year etc was a nightmare - she didn't seem to understand it at all. We the parents understood it better! She was actually doing herself out of money. I think this could also be the case for some of these owners complaining which is a problem. They don't know how to run a business. Maybe business training for proprietors needs to happen.

- the childcare subsidy website - it needs to be clearer how the calculations are arrived at. You are just given a figure and I had no choice to accept it as I had no idea how it was calculated. This needs to be clearer for providers and parents.

- insurance costs needs to be addressed by government

- those on social welfare can qualify for free childcare when they don't need childcare at all! Thus valuable places for the children of working parents are not available. Honestly government you need to cop on and stop this!

eddiervp20

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121160001#Comment_121160001

Minimum wage in Ireland is roughly 23k a year.

thomas 123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121162133#Comment_121162133

"- those on social welfare can qualify for free childcare when they don't need childcare at all! Thus valuable places for the children of working parents are not available. Honestly government you need to cop on and stop this!"

🙈

Pat201

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121162150#Comment_121162150

Have you a issue with this statement ?