Creches closing for 3 days from today

Massive house so mustn't be too bad

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.

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

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.

Yes.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Minimum wage in Ireland is roughly 23k a year.

Yes - if accurate, it’s fairly ridiculous.

I could never afford to have children.

so I didn’t. Doing my bit for the planet and all that.

I would have said there “might” be an option….not “always” …but why should a good parent not have the chance to make money at home minding other children as long as certain protocols are in place? To me it makes total sense- if you can mind one you can probably mind 2-3.

Government underwriting insurance as long as certain protocols (, premises specifications etc in place) might be a way to ease the burden of that aspect - Shirley there are figures out there around accidents etc - and also defined pay outs when something not too serious does happen - not this extortionate bill that just profits lawyers.

I know of someone taking in about 5 kids to her house every day- no idea does she pay tax etc - she’s a good mother (kids all grown now) and has had the same kids for a few years so she’s obviously doing a number of things right.

I wouldn’t like to see unregulated minding take over but with certain basic protocols such as Garda vetting and certain standards in the home maintained that parents can see for themselves are in place, allowing say a stay at home parent to mind 1-3 additional children tax free if their home was suitable may well be the answer here- and that means you could leave work for a few years, have a small income to keep things going.

Creativity is what will sort this issue temporarily- we’re too caught up with regulation insurance tax etc when there are quick wins that would benefit everybody

Totally disagree with the third point: the research is clear that high quality earlyly-childhood education is no worse for children than being at home with a parent. But someone with no more than a level 5 cert in arse-wiping is not guaranteed to have the knowledge and skill to provide high-quality education and care to a range of children.

A big part of the problem in the industry is the fact it's so hard to get staff. The rent in south Dublin is so high that many creche workers are unable to rent nearby. They commute for 1.5 hours each way for terrible rates. Our own creche has had to close some weeks because there is physically no staff that want to work there because the rent is too high.

I'd love to see a tax band for critical workers earning under a certain amount who are working in high rent areas. The creche workers in particular, in my opinion, shouldn't be paying any tax at all. The government tax intake wouldn't even notice it. But on the ground it would give the workers an extra 250-300 euro a month (assuming they're on about 26k a year which is the case in my local creche here).

The government should offer free childcare to families with 2 working parents, and not a couple of hours a day - the entire day. They are paying enough tax, so it's not free. If one parent stops working to mind their children, the government would lose out on the income tax, PRSI, and USC - that's not including the indirect tax take which would inevitably decrease as they tighten their belts. To make it fairer and less of a cost, a family that avails of free childcare shouldn't get the children's allowance, and they should pay for the childcare but get rebated with tax credits so the system is not being abused.

You will have the usual retorts from people who don't have kids complaining that they shouldn't have to fund childcare, but the reality is that we fund a great many things we don't agree with. If both parents are busting their asses to work and contribute to the economy, they shouldn't be penalised. We need more kids in this country otherwise we will all be goosed when we retire. People may not have kids or want to have kids, but we need them for the future stability of this country.

Side note: I have 2 kids, both in school now so this would be of zero benefit to me, but I went through the creche stage and I completely understand the issue.

You should question that with your creche - the costs of our older child went down by about 500 euro per month by the time she got to the oldest classroom (pre-schoolers).. And as far as I know that would be normal..

Although, with the demand for creches being so high, they probably can maintain the fee as you said. Because if your creche is anything like ours, there is a queue of parents down the street looking for a creche if you decide to leave it.

When did you see your wife if you worked during the week and she worked weekends?

Dropping out of the workforce for a few years definitely affects your earning potential.