Workplace creches will aid `only tiny minority'

Women's organisations have expressed bitter disappointment at the failure of the Budget to provide any significant assistance…

Women's organisations have expressed bitter disappointment at the failure of the Budget to provide any significant assistance for childcare, despite widespread expectations that £5 million would be made available.

But workplace creches subsidised by employers will no longer to be taxed as benefit-in-kind.

Ms Noreen Byrne, chairwoman of the National Women's Council, said this concession would affect only a tiny minority of families - 1,000 at the outside, she added, saying "today's budget is an outrage".

Referring to employers' problems in finding suitable staff, she added: "There are thousands of mothers, particularly in disadvantaged areas, who would love to take up paid employment, but who cannot because of the lack of child-care facilities. Such families need subsidised childcare."

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The council rejected the Minister for Finance's explanation that he was waiting for the report of the Expert Working Group on Childcare.

"The EWG has already briefed the Cabinet on several of its recommendations, including tax relief for working parents, capital grants for child-care providers and tax allowances for child-minders," said Ms Byrne.

The council's chief executive, Dr Katherine Zappone, said the consensus view of the social partners, which was sought by the Government before the Budget, included a commitment to childcare provision.

"Under the chapter on the labour market we called for a realistic strategy to increase the accessibility of good quality childcare," she said.

The briefing document from the Expert Working Group recommended a seven-year strategy to achieve a national child-care framework and that £5 million should be allocated in the 1999 Budget to begin this, she said.

"We were expecting a start in relation to tax relief and some start in relation to providers, especially the smaller providers, like grants to assist them to meet the regulations under the Child Care Act. Otherwise they will have to close," she said.

"Under this Budget the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform has no money to develop the programme they started."

Ms Patricia Murray of the Childminders' Association said she was "disgusted, but not really surprised" at the lack of support for child-care provision.

On the proposals on workplace creches, she commented: "It's supporting one sector and not the others. There may be a constitutional case here.

"Workplace creches are the worst kind of childcare. They turn young children into commuters. They are not suitable for babies and young children."

But Ms Martina Murphy of the National Children's Nurseries Association gave a guarded welcome to the changes for workplace creches.

"For the first time it brings employers into the dynamic," she said.