Budget proposals focus on payment, benefit

`If you're gonna do it - do it right!" declared the Childcare 2000 Campaign, launching its pre-Budget submission on childcare last month. But right for whom? As a possible successor to Partnership 2000 is being discussed and the Budget looms large, the many organisations with a vested interest in childcare are making their cases for how to move the issue forward.

Given that the demand for childcare is set to increase by up to 50 per cent over the next decade, moving things forward would appear to be quite urgent.

Childcare 2000 is an umbrella group representing the National Children's Nurseries Association, the Irish Pre-School Playgroups Association, the National Childminding Association of Ireland,

An Comhchoiste Reamhscolaiochta, the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed and the National Women's Council of Ireland. Its mission statement is to seek the implementation of a national childcare strategy which values all children and parents equally, ensuring good quality childcare services and prioritising the needs of children and families experiencing disadvantage and social exclusion. Its pre-Budget proposals include the introduction of a Parents' Childcare Payment (PCP) to parents working in and out of the home, in respect of all children. The idea of a payment in respect of all children, regardless of whether their parents work in or outside the home, has been suggested by several other groups, including the Open Your Eyes to Poverty Initiative. Many organisations now believe the focus should shift from tax relief as a mechanism of support to child benefit. It is widely agreed that child benefit will have to be increased for all children. Some feel a big increase should apply only for the under-fives; others argue it should apply to children up to the age of 14.

The extent to which it should go up is also subject to debate. But in order to offer parents a real choice about whether or not they work in or outside the home, it would have to increase quite substantially. There are also suggestions in the air that daycare facilities should receive grants to help with the cost of meeting the regulations, and calls for the creation of annual capitation grants so that parents are not burdened with the full cost of childcare.

Increasingly, the need for after-school provision is becoming a problem for working parents. A number of groups have proposed making primary schools available for after-school care. However, a report on after-school care, commissioned by the Centre for Social and Educational Research at the DIT, warns against a setting which promotes educational tasks, given that this age group will have already spent their day immersed in such tasks.

The school environment, designed as it is to meet educational needs, could be far from ideal. And the importance of looking after siblings of different ages together could be neglected by these after-school proposals.

By far the largest sector of the daycare service is childminding. According to Patricia Murray, chief executive with the National Childminding Association, "childminding accounts for over 80 per cent of the care in Ireland. But there are huge tax barriers preventing the proper development of this sector. "Childminders earn on average £2.50 an hour and where they have working husbands it isn't worthwhile claiming their own tax-free allowance. As a result they end up paying 40 per cent on the already tiny wage they earn. "In recognition of the crucial work childminders do, the Government should look at creating a unique tax allowance system. It is a unique service and should be treated accordingly.

"Unless the issue is addressed, the development of the service will remain difficult."

Mary Lee Stapleton is the national adviser with the National Children's Nurseries Association. "There is no one single solution to the childcare crisis," she says. "But it has to be tackled, and tackled in its entirety. Half-measures will only make matters worse.

"The measures in last year's Budget were employer-directed, and they simply failed to deal with the problems. We need to develop a partnership between parents, the State, employers and service providers to ensure we address all the needs.

"At the moment we are treating childcare like separate pieces of a jigsaw. But we have to look at the whole picture and develop a national policy which deals properly with each separate strand. The fundamental principle informing such a policy must be the needs and rights of children."