Creches closing for 3 days from today

I'm not sure we need to pay much more tax if we're already making a surplus of about 6 billion though?

Just did some numbers to see how it would pan out:

Average pay in Ireland is around €45k (according to the CSO)

Therefore 2 parents on the average salary are taking in €90k p/a

Tax taken from a 2-parent family earning €90k is €19,044

If one parent stopped working, the tax take would be €6,747 (tax credits passed to the spouse)     

The difference in tax take is €12,297 (that's excluding indirect taxes which would also take a hit due to tightening the purse strings)

The average married family has 2.09 children (let’s exclude the 0.9). Therefore, the children’s allowance for 2 kids is €280 p/m or €3,360 p/a

The tax difference added to the children’s allowance is €15,657 p/a, or €1,304.75 monthly

The government is already funding the ECCE scheme so there is a cost there already.

I would guess that when everything is added up, it works out less. 

This was how it was with our first child but since the fee freezes etc now they just have one rate. So with all these government aids we still haven't seen a huge drop in fees for our second child.

Okay if it's exploitation to pay a person from a poorer country double an average salary in their country, enabling them to take care of family back home, then it's exploitation.

In such case you are all out of options so stop complaining about paying the going rate for childcare.

Will the worker be living in their home country or this country? Because minimum wage in Ireland is not enough to live on here and support a family elsewhere.

This is not a way to solve our problem long term or likely even short term.

Maybe it works in HK, but we have decided to not go down the exploitation route in Ireland.

Yeah probably not, as I said. I'm just showing how it is solved in another place. It would be good if we had any other ideas in Ireland though apart from more government handouts

I was listening to a few creche owners talking about this yesterday. So one of the huge issues was that they had to agree to a fee freeze in August 2021 without knowing how much they would get from Core funding. So they were essentially gambling blind. Core funding gives €69 per week per child in the creche. Consider how much your own personal bills for food and electricity have gone up since that timeframe & tell me that it hasn't affected you. There has been no increase in this. For the ECCE rates it currently sits at €64.50 per child per week. This has increased from €52 in 2010 when it was started. So only €12.50 in 13 years. That's not even a euro a year! Additionally it came out that ECCE only facilities are not liable for rates for the most part whereas full time creches are which increases their costs. An example one owner gave was that she froze her fees in August 2021 to get the core funding. A creche could open across the road from her, set the fees at whatever they like and sign up to core funding today. There is no max limit to fees to obtain the core funding so the new creche could be getting any amount extra per child to the established creche with the established one being able to do nothing. It's not well thought through.

I'm a parent paying creche fees for the past 3 years. They are expensive, no doubt. But at the end of the day these people are looking after the most precious thing in my life so I would prefer them to have qualifications and more than a 6 week course and be properly paid. When you think about it, it's a public service which is being provided by the private sector. The more the current way continues, the more creches are going to go out of business as they can't afford to keep up with all the regulations, the costs and have enough to actually pay the staff. In fact the creche I'm in has closed their facility for older children in afterschool as it was starting to cost them money to operate it. Not ideal for parents as they may still need it but if they hadn't, from talking to the owner, it would have meant closing rooms for the younger ones.

To those complaining about paying €1,000 a month for creche fees. That works out at €47 a day for 51 weeks a year (closed at Christmas).

If your child attends for 10 hours that is €4.70 an hour you are paying.

You wouldn't get a babysitter on a Friday night for €4.70 an hour.

It's actually very reasonably priced.

Parent A on €100,000 a year, and Parent B on €30,000 a year.

Parent B pays far far less tax than Parent A.

Should each get the same subsidy?

So Parent B paying far less tax will get a higher subsidy, and Parent A pays full whack and also a contribution towards Parent B's creche fees?

Here in the Netherlands the more you earn then the less you get back. So someone on minimum wage gets almost the whole fee back, which enables them to work. Someone earning a decent wage gets a lot less back.

As someone earning a decent wage its a system i agree with as it keeps low paid workers in the workforce and doesn't overly subsidize the wealthy

It sounds logical, but does Netherlands have a system like Ireland where a flat rate of child benefit is paid to all parents regardless of means or income? I don't see how Ireland can have a system like you describe while also handing out €140 per child each month to every parent in the country.

I mentioned it earlier in the thread but if parents are struggling that much financially it is quite possible that one is better off not working if they do the maths.

No creche fee = €12k a year

Transfer standard rate band = €1,800

Transfer personal tax credit = €1,775

Home carer tax credit = €1,700

There's up €17,275 available to a married couple, where one earns more than €49,000 and the other parent chooses to stop working.

Add in the ability to earn up to €15k tax free from minding other children (they'd lose the home carer credit but the total rises to €30,575).

What salary does the parent need to earn to receive €30k net a year...