Teresa Murray likens the lack of affordable childcare to China's one-child policy, because while she and Gary would like to have three or four children, they are struggling financially to pay for childcare for just one, writes Kate Holmquist
Parents: Teresa Murray, assistant to senior executive producer of Riverdance, and husband Gary, software engineer, living in Charlotte's Quay, Dublin
Children: Nina (two), and a second child on the way
What they have: Creche fees of €780 per month, which will rise to more than €1,620 per month when the new baby starts creche
What they want Longer paid parental leave; substantial increase in child benefit; capping of creche costs; affordable family housing to buy in the city
. Their much-wanted second baby, expected in the New Year, will increase the burden so much that they will have to cut the food budget and sacrifice certain basics. They cannot afford to buy a house yet and have no car as they are saving for a deposit.
"It is a sad thing to find yourself happy that there is only one baby in your womb and to know that, while of course you'd have loved twins just as strongly, the appearance of a second image on the scan would have rocked your world so entirely it might just have come off its axis," Teresa says.
Nina was five months old when she went to creche, going straight into a routine of being dropped off at 8.15am and picked up at 5.45pm. "That's better than many children's days, because we don't have an additional commute," Teresa says.
The new baby will be only four months old when it starts creche because Teresa cannot afford to take four weeks' unpaid leave in addition to the statutory 18 weeks' maternity leave.
Teresa wants to see child benefit substantially increased beyond the current "laughable" level because this would benefit all families, whether or not parents worked or stayed at home. She would also like to see childcare costs capped, so that no family would pay more than 1,000 per month, no matter how many of their children were in daycare.
Teresa fears that unless the childcare issue is sorted out, enabling couples to afford more than one child, there will be too few taxpayers in future to fund pensions. She also fears that the lack of brothers and sisters for today's children could create a generation of spoiled little emperors who in adulthood lack supportive family networks when their parents become ill or die.