Vulnerable children ‘falling through the gaps’ of new childcare scheme

Sharon Davis, a single mother who has just turned 40, lives in St Mary’s Mansions in Dublin’s Seán McDermott Street. She has five children of her own aged from 10 to 24. Through a private family arrangement, she also provides a home for three other children, two baby girls aged one and two and a nine-year-old boy, David*.

Their mother, Sharon’s sister, is a chronic drug user who is unable to care for her children. Sharon was studying for a degree in social policy in Maynooth University but had to abandon college to take care of her nephew. “I’m hoping to go back some day,” she says.

Like many people in disadvantaged areas, Sharon relies on subsidised childcare and she’s worried at the moment. As schools open again, parents across the country will be giving thanks for increased subsidies that will reduce their childcare bills. For most working parents, the new National Childcare Scheme (NCS) – the State’s first universal childcare subvention, which replaced the old Community Childcare Subvention Programme (CCSP) – represents progress, an improvement on how things were.

David attends a local community after- school service in nearby Mountjoy Square, a resource now under threat. Many in the community childcare sector say the NCS has led to a reduction in funding, which means the services will not be sustainable into the future.

Schoolbook scramble: How to change the system and reduce the cost to parents

---

Is an exoskeleton suit the next step into the future?

---

Why are children with mental health problems ending up in A&E?

---

“I’m really worried the services won’t be able to continue,” says Sharon, describing what access to the after-school service means for her family.

Hot meal

David is picked up from school, helped with his homework, taken on day trips and given a hot meal. “It gives him so much and it gives me head space where I get to spend time with my 10 year-old. It’s an amazing resource. If it wasn’t there, we’d be lost.”

September is an important month. Children returning to school will see some families divided between older children who continue to qualify for after-school supports and younger children who do not. Children receiving supports under the old State subvention programme, the CCSP, continue to receive them under the old scheme but any children starting school or accessing after-school services for the first time find themselves under the new scheme. The new scheme pays less subvention per child compared with the old scheme and, according to some providers, the scheme now discriminates against some of the most disadvantaged children.

Since early this year, Labour Senator Marie Sherlock has been raising the issue in the Seanad and with Minister for Children Roderic O’Gorman. While the new scheme allows 45 hours a week for children with working parents, it provides for only 20 subsidised hours per week for children in homes where the parents are not at work.

“The allocation sounds more generous than it actually is as the hours spent in school are subtracted from the allowance. So school-age children of parents who are not working are deprived of subsidies,” she says.

Sherlock believes the scheme does not put children first. “Children’s own needs must be put at the heart of this, irrespective of their parents’ circumstances,” she says. “Long-term joblessness and the very challenging situations these families find themselves in means that assurances of affordable childcare support have to be in place first, before parents can go job seeking.”

She is keen to stress that it’s not just a Dublin issue. A recent public meeting with providers and early-years workers was attended by people in Sligo, Cavan, Kilkenny, Monaghan and other counties where there are similar concerns.

Ann Carroll and Brian O’Toole are from the Community After School Project (CASPr) on Mountjoy Square, a service attended by David and dozens of other children. The project has been caring for children in Dublin’s inner-city for 25 years and there is “unprecedented” demand for their services at the moment.

They say the new scheme, as currently designed, will exclude some children, and there is a concern that they may have to turn away children who would have previously qualified for support. In the worst-case scenario, some providers will be forced to close part or all of their services.

“Come September, some children will be excluded because their criteria for eligibility doesn’t fit with what the NCS provides for,” says O’Toole, the chairperson of CASPr. “The new system is a labour activation model which deliberately and absolutely mitigates against the most disadvantaged.”

Carroll and O’Toole say they have been trying to explain the issues to the Department of Children since 2017 and regret that the arguments now have to be aired in a public forum.

“There are anomalies in the system that are not working for some of the children we serve,” O’Toole says. “These are children of incarcerated parents. These are children being looked after by grandparents or by parents who are addicts or who may be disabled in some way or where there is violence in the home. The reality is we are going to have to let children go and where will they go?” If the system is not amended, they estimate they will need to fundraise almost €30,000 “to try to maintain some level of care”.

Carroll points to bureaucratic complexities in the new system, which leave them unable to plan ahead.

“It’s also not easy for parents to access. Some will not register for the new scheme, because it has to be done online.” Her frustration is palpable. “We have many children in our care who will not be eligible under the new NCS,” Carroll continues, expressing concern that vulnerable children who suffered disproportionately during lockdown, “will fall through the gaps”.

‘Shoestring’

“We’re a voluntary board of management, working on a shoestring to try and provide an important service,” says O’Toole. “It feels like we’re constantly having to justify our very existence. The new scheme is going to make things worse.”

Sarah Kelleher has worked with Lourdes Youth Community Centre, where she is chief executive, for more than 20 years. The centre runs a creche in Hardwicke Street flats, a long-established Dublin inner-city local authority development.

She says while the details are complex in terms of how the NCS is impacting the local community, at heart the issue is very simple: “We’re getting less money at the end of the day,” she says. “And because we’re getting less money we risk being unsustainable. So children will lose out if they can’t come to us.

“They have designed the system to meet the needs of parents or at least try to, so the whole system isn’t bad … but this is a labour activation policy. They want women, in particular disadvantaged women, back in the workforce. For us, it’s all about the child, not what the parents are doing. It’s about engaging children, the most vulnerable children who are often living in dysfunctional environments, in early years education.”

Some children can avail of sponsorship by child and family agency Tusla to qualify for the full 45 hours of free childcare per week but the referral numbers are low and for various reasons many families do not wish to engage with that system.

According to those in the sector, one way to address the issue would be to make any child attending a Deis (Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools) school part of the national childcare scheme, regardless of eligibility concerns. “That would mean any child who attends one of those schools would not have to jump through hoops,” says O’Toole of CASPr. “Every hoop is another barrier. We need an inclusive scheme.”

In the 2018 strategy on children, there was a commitment to introducing Deis status – ie, disadvantaged status – for early years and after-school services. This was never done.

When these concerns were put to O’Gorman, he provided a statement describing the NCS as a “progressive system” designed to ensure “families on the lowest incomes receive the greatest level of support”.

“The NCS does not place barriers on vulnerable children,” the Minister’s statement said, noting that the new system is the first ever statutory entitlement to financial support for childcare in Ireland.

“Prior to the introduction of the NCS, access to support for childcare costs was very restricted … the NCS was designed on the principle of progressive universalism, ensuring that families on the lowest incomes receive the greatest level of support.”

The department is setting up a review of the first year of operation of the NCS. “At the Minister’s request, the review has been broadened to include consideration of the work/study aspect of the scheme. The department will receive this report later this year and consider what actions if any are needed to improve and build upon the current scheme.”

O’Gorman is also waiting for a report examining how childcare in Ireland should be funded. “One issue this group has been tasked with examining is a Deis-type model for providing childcare in areas of high disadvantage.”

The Minister said he looked forward to receiving this report and working on implementing its recommendations.

That review is due at the end of the year. Those who work with vulnerable children worry that this will be too late for many now at risk of losing out on crucial early years education and childcare under the new scheme.

*Name has been changed