Childcare: where the parties stand and the numbers
Women in the State: By the Numbers
Women in the State: 1,666,000
In paid employment: 771,700
Working in the home: 553,900
Students: 193,600
Retired: 72,200
Unemployed: 32,500
Other: 42,100
Source: Central Statistics Office
Childcare: where the parties stand
Fianna Fáil
Position the same as that of the Government.
High-level working group, chaired by Brian Lenihan TD, is preparing a report that will feed into Cabinet decision on future childcare policy. The first elements of this policy are expected to be announced in the December Budget for 2006.
Fine Gael
Expects to have policy document ready within weeks. Its 2004 local election manifesto proposed: using school buildings to provide after-school childcare; doubling home carers' tax credit and ensuring it covers those staying at home minding their children; giving home carers a tax credit equal to the PAYE credit; changing the guidelines for those providing childcare facilities; national training standards for childcare workers.
Labour
Full policy to be published within weeks. Details to include: a year of paid parental leave; free pre-school place for every three-year-old; childminders will be exempt from tax on first 8,000 they earn each year; various "family-friendly work options"; abolition of rates on childcare centres; subsidy to parents of up to 40 per cent of the average cost of childcare; supports for parents on low incomes and social welfare who have childcare costs.
Progressive Democrats
Continued provision of childcare facilities for the less well off under the Equal Opportunities Childcare Programme; using school buildings to provide after-school childcare; relaxing standards - while seeking to maintain quality - to make it easier to set up childcare services; exemption of first 8,000 of childminders' income from tax each year; possible tax relief for parents paying for childcare.
Green Party
Policy document in preparation will include proposals to: give a €150 per child per month refundable tax credit to every family, regardless of childcare arrangements; put families and children, not the demands of the economy, at the centre of Government policy; give each parent the option to stay at home in the early years of a child's life through increasing parental leave; have a flexible range of financial supports to give parents maximum choice; increase the provision of workplace-based and campus-based creches; make financial provision for parents who wish to employ childminders or who want to stay at home to care for their own children.
Sinn Féin
Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin TD said earlier this week that the party supports proposals made by the National Economic and Social Forum including: universal access to early childhood care and education; ongoing quality development in policy, infrastructure and service provision; increase of paid maternity leave to 26 weeks; State-funded high-quality early childhood care and education session of 3½ hours per day, five days a week, for all children in the year before they go to school; child and family centres at local level to provide integrated services to disadvantaged children and their parents; responsibility for early childhood care and education to reside in one Government department.