Childcare is Ireland’s impossible equation. No matter how much you try to solve for X – working from home, asking relatives for help, using crèches, childminders and availing of State subsidies and payments – it seems designed to break you financially and emotionally.
It’s been 20 years but my nerves still haven’t recovered from organising childcare for our two kids.
Like most people, I had to work to help pay the bills. Choice didn’t come into it. Even though my husband and I were highly educated, well-paid professionals living in Dublin, it was an exhausting struggle. We were paying €2,500 on our mortgage and €2,000 monthly for the creche in which we were lucky to get two places. The numbers never added up.
My husband is an accountant and I was a personal finance journalist. We had knowledge, energy and means and we still couldn’t find the right formula for our family. Financially, I could only afford to take five months off with each child.
We didn’t live large. The kids’ clothes were a combination of hand-me downs, gifts or purchases from Penneys, Dunnes or other low-cost retailers. To save money, we used home exchanges for our holidays and our car was second hand. We weren’t buying designer clothes, takeaways, lattes or going to the pub every week – common “advice” at that time from the older generation and finance experts.
The majority of families need two incomes to pay the bills. Why haven’t we been able to solve this equation? Is it because we think it’s just a women’s issue or are we under the delusion that most families can survive on one salary?
Every penny was counted, every possibility explored, but since we didn’t have family to help out for free – which isn’t ideal or fair anyway – it became a constant puzzle to be solved.
My husband’s job was not flexible, so I had to reorganise my work schedule for school training days or holidays. The one-hour difference in pick-up times between junior/senior infants and first through sixth class was ridiculous, coming as it did right in the middle of the work day. If you don’t work near where you live, it is impossible.
Children’s childcare and developmental needs also change as they grow, so we had to constantly seek out the most suitable arrangements such as a creche, au pair or childminder. Afterschool care was not available at that time for older children; nor were breakfast clubs.
For me, the juggle became impossible unless I worked from home. When we had two children, doubling the cost for a creche, an au pair was an obvious solution. She minded the older child while I was working in the kitchen. I’ll never forget interviewing economists with the phone on my left shoulder while breastfeeding our younger on my right.
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Add a sick child into this fragile mix and it was absolute chaos. Naturally, children want and need their parents when they’re not feeling well, but deadlines and workflows are not easily adjusted. In the end, I quit my beloved career in journalism and started my own company.
A rigged game
My story is every parent’s story then and now. No matter what you do or how you plan, the numbers can never add up in Ireland. The game is rigged against working parents.
Today, childcare costs are still high, places are like hen’s teeth, and the stress this places on working parents and their children is enormous. Mortgages, rents and the high cost of living all make things more difficult.
Ireland has some of the highest childcare costs in Europe, with one-third of a woman’s median full-time earnings being used on childcare back in 2019. That figure rises in lower-income family households, particularly lone-parent households (overwhelmingly led by women).
Ireland also has the highest reliance on unpaid care work in the European Union – most of it unpaid childcare likely provided by relatives.
In recent years, government has committed to providing more support and is moving towards a public childcare model. The National Childcare Scheme and the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) scheme help parents reduce costs.
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The Core Funding grant helps early-learning and childcare providers with their operating costs. Recently announced new caps on what providers can charge from September should mean no parents pay more than €295 a week for a child attending a service in the scheme for 40 to 50 hours a week. That figure will, in most cases, fall to €198.70 after other supports are factored in, but the caps vary according to the number of hours involved.
High childcare costs are a barrier to women working outside the home and this has prevented Ireland’s child poverty rates from improving. The current system is not working well for current or future generations.
Women have been in the workforce for decades. The majority of families need two incomes to pay the bills. Why haven’t we been able to solve this equation? Is it because we think it’s just a women’s issue or are we under the delusion that most families can survive on one salary?
Who should be responsible for childcare and the tasks involved in raising happy and healthy kids? Naturally, it’s the parents’ responsibility first, but society, the Government and employers all have a part to play.
And weirdly, everyone seems to forget that men are parents too. In Ireland, women spend on average 21.3 hours per week on unpaid care work in comparison to 10.6 hours per week for men.
“In Irish society, the crisis in care is central to women’s inequality, with under-resourcing, lack of adequate provision, accessibility issues and moves towards commodification and corporatisation affecting almost all aspects of care and support provision,” states a recent study, Gender equity and care for transformative climate justice, by Jennie Stephens of Maynooth University and Orla O’Connor of the National Women’s Council.
When childcare can’t be provided by the mother, it’s often a woman – not the father – who steps into the breach. Although paternity leave and family leave are legally mandated, only around half of fathers avail of paternity leave and a quarter take parent’s leave compared to two-thirds of mothers, according to research by the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (Ihrec), Child Related Leave: Usage and Implications for Gender Equality.
The related welfare benefits paid are flat-rate, so income-related concerns are a significant barrier to higher take-up rates. A lack of a supportive employer culture and inconsistent employer top-ups also discourage fathers from taking paternity leave. If 100 per cent of their earnings were covered while on leave and if part of child-related leave was ring-fenced for fathers, these figures would be likely to improve.
“The fact that women do far more care and care work, paid and unpaid, than men plays a significant part in women’s lower economic status in Ireland. To address persistent, structural inequality between women and men, Ireland must find a new relationship between paid employment, care work and gender roles,” said Liam Herrick, Ihrec chief commissioner.
“This report robustly demonstrates the need for effective and gender equitable child related leave schemes, and where policy efforts should be focused to greatest effect.”
Margaret E Ward is chief executive of Clear Eye, a leadership consultancy. margaret@cleareye.ie
