We can meet the childcare challenge with fresh thinking and better options for parents such as tax breaks and legislative measures to help increase supply and lower costs, writes John Minihan.
One of the biggest challenges facing parents today is ensuring appropriate childcare for their children. Many parents rely on a mixture of crèches, paid childminders, family and friends. For others, perhaps living in the new estates of Dublin's hinterland, these solutions are simply not an option and careers are often put on hold.
The search for quality childcare can be both stressful and, where available, expensive.
We need fresh thinking and better options for parents if we are to tackle this problem successfully.
This fresh thinking must be subject to one overarching principle - childcare must be child-centred.
This Progressive Democrats-Fianna Fáil Government has made a greater commitment to the childcare sector than any of its predecessors. Since 2000 the Government has committed, under the Equal Opportunities Childcare Programme, over €313 million to develop quality childcare supporting some 62,000 childcare places, 33,000 of which are newly created.
In the remaining 18 months of this phase of the programme, the Government intends to spend a further €186 million supporting existing places and creating 3,500 new places.
The Progressive Democrats' objective is to create greater choice for parents and allow them to do what is best for their child.
Fuelled by continued growth in the economy and large numbers of women returning to the workplace, demand far outstrips supply despite this record investment.
At the recent PD national conference in Cork, I brought forward a number of proposals that will assist parents with childcare costs and greatly increase childcare places.
Tax relief for parents against childcare costs.
Tax relief for childminders.
Liberalising safety standards for childminders.
Guaranteeing the future of the Equal Opportunities Childcare Programme.
Ring-fencing that programme for pre-school childcare only.
A new childcare programme to cater for primary school children.
These proposals are not a panacea.
But taken together, they would greatly assist parents seeking childcare. That is the goal.
Parents should be able to benefit from tax breaks. Microsoft can offset the cost of its crèche against corporation tax. A self-employed person can offset the cost of a secretary against income tax. Why shouldn't parents be allowed to claim the costs of private childcare against income tax?
Allowing claims against tax at the standard rate, as we do for mortgage relief and service charges, for registered childcare expenses will lift some of the cost burdens off hard-pressed parents.
All disincentives for those thinking of becoming childminders need to be examined. To encourage supply in the rental market, couples who let rooms in their homes can earn nearly €8,000 tax-free. A similar scheme for childminders will encourage more people into the market. This would provide parents with more options when it comes to tackling their own childcare needs.
Childminders caring for more than three children are covered presently by the Child Care Act, 1991. This may be a deterrent to many women thinking of providing a childcare service. We need to look at such regulation. In the Canadian province of Quebec, for example, childminders on average care for six children ranging in age from infants to five-year-olds. If this measure was introduced here, many more childcare places could be created at a much lower cost.
Taxation and legislative measures will help increase supply and lower costs for parents using childcare in the private sector. "Not-for-profit" community-based childcare schemes also need greater support. Funding for the Equal Opportunities Childcare Programme is guaranteed until 2009. That funding should be ring-fenced for pre-school childcare only and a further programme initiated for primary school children.
Many of our 3,000-odd primary school buildings lie idle outside of school hours. At the PD conference I proposed that these valuable assets must be made available to parents, so they can organise childcare schemes within their own schools. The State should assist with the cost of insurance, heating and lighting, and where necessary with the cost of hiring professional staff.
Each scheme would be an independent "not-for-profit" organisation - run by the parents for the parents and their children. Parents would decide the opening hours of each scheme; whether the scheme will operate with volunteer carers, paid carers or a combination of the two; the type of food provided to the children, subject to healthy eating criteria; how the money from fees set aside for day-to-day materials such as art and crafts, reading books, DVDs, etc., is spent.
A programme based on these principles would allow parents to decide what is best for them, their children and their community. For example by using volunteer carers, the children would benefit from the broad knowledge base of their community.
Alternatively, parents might opt to employ childcare professionals, the cost of whose employment would be borne by the parents, with State assistance, and reflected in the fee they pay. Or parents might decide to use a combination of both volunteers and professionals working together in a scheme. In this way they would be assured the best of both worlds.
Senator John Minihan is Progressive Democrats spokesman on education