Health staff to be charged €90 per week for childcare under new Government scheme

Healthcare staff will have to pay € 90 per week for childcare to facilitate them going to work under a new Government scheme.

Minister for Children Katherine Zappone said the new scheme, which is to come into effect after May 18th, would provide essential health care workers with 45 hours of childcare per week in their homes.

The Minister told the Dáil the Government was recommending that childcare workers volunteering for the scheme would be paid, on average € 15-per-hour.

She said new service would cost about € 4.7 million per week and could cover 5,000 families. Most of the cost would be borne by the State, she said.

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In the coming days eligible health workers will be advised to contact a Pobal parent support centre to request the service and to indicate their childcare needs and preferences, Ms Zappone added.

“It is initially intended to run the scheme for a period of four weeks. There will be a review after two weeks, and also at the end of the four-week period.”

The provision of childcare for essential health workers has been a major issue for staff and trade unions over recent weeks since the closure of schools and crèches. A HSE survey last month indicated that up to 8,000 staff either had or forecast they would soon have childcare difficulties.

The HSE has proposed separately that staff experiencing childcare difficulties could be offered a range of flexible and working arrangements.

It suggested that options could include shift rotation (where both parents were frontline workers), longer work days (allowing for more time off duty), weekend working, split shifts, night working, and staggered start and finish times.

Flexible working

In a new document received by trade unions on Wednesday the HSE again stated that there was “no special paid leave available for Covid-19 caring arrangements”.

It said, however, that all forms of flexible working must be considered by managers, including working from home “where possible” and/or working adjusted hours to facilitate employees to balance work and caring responsibilities.

“If employees are not set up for remote working at present, they need to continue to remain available to work, and their employer/manager should identify work that can be given to them. Employers/managers are required to identify and engage with employees on alternative arrangements e.g. staggering hours, wider opening hours including weekend work, and temporary assignment to another role. If employees cannot work outside the home and cannot perform their current role remotely, the employee is still to be considered as actively on duty and available to work.

“Employers/managers are required to be flexible and innovative in terms of ensuring that employees remain as productive as possible during this time and this may include assigning work outside the employee’s usual core duties, ie potentially a new role.

Trade union Fórsa said on Wednesday that although no agreement was made with staff representatives on the new arrangements, consultations that had taken place had “marginally increased the wriggle-room for those who are able to avail of the flexible work arrangements”.

However Fórsa’s head of health Éamonn Donnelly said the new HSE arrangements were “complicated” and “still falls far short of what’s required to balance the childcare and professional needs of essential health workers”.

“While it is a marginal improvement, this amended HSE approach still risks reducing the number of available essential workers.

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation said proposals for split shifts had been removed in subsequent talks on Wednesday.