1 July 1999 Edition

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Childcare 2000 looks to local government

Last Friday it all started again. Primary schools closed their doors behind 858,823 children who got their two months holiday. For many of their parents it's no holiday.

``I don't know what to do. They won't give me holidays in the job until September. My sister can't take them every day ... they hate going there anyway. There's a GAA summer play group for two weeks. We've our summer project, but it's only three weeks. It'll cost me £110 at the minders for the two of them. I can't afford that. Sure it's not worth going to the job for that money. I'd be working for £8 a day. I'd be better off at home, but I don't want to lose the job for next year. It's the fights that start on the street, I just can't handle it.''

So it goes on. Both parents go to work, often to earn the mortgage payments which can't be met without double income. And suffer the children. There's no crèche, no summer project, no affordable or available or reliable childminder, no care, no holiday. Just the street.

Some kids will make off to the Gaeltacht at a couple of hundred pounds a week, gaining educational opportunities and widening horizons or a couple of weeks camping in Europe. Others will make off to the streets, with perhaps a neighbour, or sibling, to mind them. It's the problem of childcare.

The problem of childcare starts with the fact that there is a lack of it. But this is only the tip of the iceberg - an iceberg which plumbs to the depths of inequality in Irish society. As Combat Poverty point out in their excellent submission to the Partnership 2000 Expert Working Group on Childcare, ``poverty is not only the result of unequal distribution of resources, but also creates further inequalities in education, employment and quality of life, thereby leading to the inter-generational cycle of disadvantage, poverty and social exclusion''.

In between all the buzz words, the current euphemisms for inequality, there lies the reality that childcare provision is the fulcrum at which the swing into the self perpetuating cycle of disadvantage can be broken.

Poverty there is, and it is increasing especially amongst children. This is scarcely surprising, because, as the ``Sharing in Progress: the National Anti-Poverty Strategy'' document points out, the weekly cost of rearing one child was £34.50 in 1996, at basic minimum living standard, whilst the combined child income support (welfare plus child benefit) was £19.89 at the time.

No wonder that the National Women's Council of Ireland (NWCI) was enraged when last December Finance Minister Charlie McCreevy failed in his budget to make any provision for childcare. Noreen Byrne, chairperson of the NWCI, which represents 300,000 women and 140 women's' groups, described it as an outrage that the minister could not even cough up £5 million to fund the development of a national childcare plan.

The only budget provision gave some help to employers to provide crèche facilities for their hard pressed staff. With Government the largest employer in the state, he might instead have thought to provide crèche facilities for all its employees. He didn't.

Instead Health Board inspectors have been warning childcare providers that their premises must meet the requirements of the 1996 Child Care Regulations. The regulations are detailed and mean that most providers of childcare, in the home, are faced with the bleak prospect of heavy capital expenditure, and entry into the white economy. Without grants to help most of these providers they are being forced out of business. Or it means raising charges to the hard pressed users.

Childcare costs are between £40 and £71 per week for a single child, which on average represents a fifth of average income, which is the third highest of 15 EU states.

Since 1980 there have been 11 reports on the issue of childcare. Three of them are presently before the Inter-departmental Committee, under the 26 county Minister of Justice, whose department is supposed to report its findings and recommendations in August.

``We'll see,'' says Noreen. ``I'm a little cynical at this stage, but I'm hopeful that this time around the budget will make provision for the child benefit option.

The Childcare 2000 campaign want child benefit:

raised to £30 a week, (partly taxed)

£2 million capital grants to help upgrade premises to comply with the 1996 Regulations

an investment of £5 million to support quality childcare in disadvantaged areas

further supports for training

help for child minders to register

for qualified people in suitable premises.

Measly demands, say some child minders. The £5 million won't go very far to upgrade all the premises of the thousands of child care providers, who are faced with building extensions to meet the 1996 regulations. ``We're pragmatic about it,'' says Noreen. ``We've made recommendations which we believe can actually be implemented.''

Higher child benefits might help those with children living in poverty, but they won't help the children of the disadvantaged as they suffer in education, schooling, qualifications, employment and quality of life.

Perhaps the most important of all the campaign's recommendations is the establishment of a National Childcare Committee to oversee a national strategy and the proposal for county childcare committees which would develop county childcare plans, as a part of the County Development plan.

The Partnership 2000 Report and Childcare 2000 Campaign recommend that the national and county committees would be funded to the tune of £3 million, and report through Justice and the inter-departmental committee to the cabinet. This proposal brings provision of child care right into the heart of local Government.

The report recommends that each county committee would draw its membership from local providers, private and community, NGO/Childcare sector, statutory bodies, social partners and last, but by no means least, parents themselves. The job of the county committee, which would be convened by the local authority, is to develop, implement and monitor a 7-year plan for child care. The committee would have independent status and would be legally constituted to employ staff and channel finance. P2000 proposes that £2 million budget be allocated for the first year of operation.

The heart of dealing with the child care issue of course lies in the communities, which in so many cases have gathered funding from Government, EU, Partnerships, and their own communities to meet the needs which the community determines. This has been and undoubtedly will continue to be the source of a solution to problem of child care. It is also the only level at which child care can be dealt with as the key to redressing the balance of inequality in society, and cutting off the inter-generational cycle of poverty.


ERSI's `Living in Ireland' study showed (from 1994 figures), that 18% of adults live below the poverty line of 50% of average income, and an astounding 32% live below the 60% poverty line. Twenty years ago (in 1973) the corresponding figures were 15% and 24%. Worse, where 16% of children were below the 50% poverty line in 1973, twenty years later, 29% are. 40% of children are below the 60% poverty line in 1994.


Family Friendly EU states


In France 90% of 3 year olds are enrolled in state-subsidised Ecoles Maternelles. Their families can avail of 15 subsidies.

In Sweden municipal authorities provide day-care centres or family day-care places for children from 1 to 6, and some care before and after school for children aged 6 to 12 years.

In Finland local Government provide day care. All children under 7 have the right to day-care places.

In Denmark public day-care facilities must be supplied by law for children. Two thirds of child care institutions are run by local authorities, the rest are privately owned.

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