Childcare is in crisis, with more women joining the labour force, workers leaving childcare for better paid jobs and services closing because of new regulations, according to a report published yesterday.
It recommends a range of measures which include tax relief for working parents and grants for childcare services towards the cost of hiring extra workers.
However, it also wants compulsory registration of all childminders, including those minding just one child in their own homes. It suggests tax relief and other measures to safeguard their incomes.
"The Report of the Partnership 2000 Expert Working Group on Childcare" was produced by a committee representing a range of interests, including industry, the childcare sector and parents' bodies.
It was chaired by Ms Sylda Langford, a senior civil servant at the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, who is a former social worker.
The expert group was established under Partnership 2000. It dealt specifically with the needs of parents working outside the home.
Its recommendations will be considered by an interdepartmental working group set up by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr O'Donoghue.
The report deals with the situation of three broad groups: working parents who would benefit from tax relief; providers of childcare; and disadvantaged people and communities.
It recommends that working parents in the tax net should qualify for £2,000 to £4,000 tax relief per child.
It also says childcare provided by an employer should no longer be taxed as a benefit in kind. And it recommends employers should be able to write off employee childcare subsidies against company profits.
Parents are paying an average £44 to £71 per week for childcare, the committee found.
The highest prices are charged by childminders in their own homes. The alternative to a childminder is often a community childcare service operating on a not-for-profit basis and this explains why their charges are lower, the report suggests.
Some 17 per cent of children up to nine years of age are in paid for childcare. This represents 146,000 children.
Regulations made in 1996, along with introducing standards for childcare services, have led to the closure of some of these services, the report says.
It suggests grants should be payable to childcare services to help them meet the new standards.
It also suggests "employment grants" of up to £5,000 for each new staff member employed in community and private childcare facilities.
These measures would be overseen by a national childcare management committee working to the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform.
At county level, county childcare committees would draw up plans and co-ordinate the provision of local services.
The national committee would work out what qualifications childcare workers should have. It would also outline the ways in which workers could obtain these qualifications.
The ultimate aim would be that at least 60 per cent of workers would have childcare qualifications.
The report suggests measures to make childcare affordable for people on low pay who would not benefit from tax relief.
These include taking childcare costs into account when calculating the Family Income Supplement, payable to working parents on low incomes.
People receiving the one-parent allowance should be allowed to earn up to £16,000 if they are paying for childcare, it says.
One of the main points of the report is to take childcare out of the black economy and it puts forward two main measures to achieve this.
One is the compulsory registration of all childminders. The other is basing tax relief on receipted payments.
The typical childminder is a mother caring for fewer than six children including her own, it says, and it estimated that there are 37,900 such childminders in the State.
These women should qualify for a special tax allowance on their earnings, it says, and child minding income should be ignored for social welfare allowances and medical cards.
The report also calls for a Garda clearance system for all child minders "working in childcare in whatever capacity".