The Government must find a way to prioritise the particular childcare and employment needs of lone parents, writes Frances Byrne
One size will not fit all. It is widely acknowledged that families have diverse caring needs throughout the passage of childhood. Some parents will be fortunate enough to have enough resources to make satisfactory choices at each stage. Most will attempt a balancing act between their increasing financial commitments and what's best for their children.
Into the mix also for those parenting alone goes the reality of being sole parent and sole breadwinner.
Research published by the Department of Work and Pensions in the United Kingdom shows lone parents moving from welfare have a further consideration: being a positive role model for their children.
The research concludes that even those parents who are very positively disposed to work will "need a mix of policies that allow them to do work that fits around childcare and/or raises their willingness and confidence to use non-parental childcare.
"These might include flexible working arrangements, extended paid maternity or parental leave, better information on childcare services, trial periods of childcare ('tasters'), and financial support for informal carers and during the 'settling in' period".
This mix would also, of course, be desirable for two-parent families.
Almost all of the current discourse in Ireland on this issue examines the childcare issue from the perspective of supporting two-parent families, where both adults work outside the home. As the Children's Ombudsman, Emily Logan, has recently highlighted, the needs of the economy are prioritised over the needs of children and their families.
There have been calls for tax relief for working (outside the home) parents. Schools have been identified as potential settings for the provision of services and the Government has recently provided a funding stream to support this. While these may be worthy demands, they fail to take account of those parents who work outside the home and use informal care within home settings as opposed to creches.
Those making the above proposals probably consider that the adoption of such measures would encourage the increased use of formal provision, which in turn they anticipate could help to ensure a universal (and high) standard of care. It seems safe to assume that those who seek urgent progress in the development of childcare, view quality as a central and crucial element. Of course, it must be acknowledged that parents who choose in-home provision satisfy themselves more than adequately that it is of the highest standard for their children.
Developing a quality standard for childcare is a laudable stipulation for financial support from Exchequer sources. It would, of course, be entirely possible to link a parental tax relief for childcare with participation in an appropriate training programme for all providers, including those in the home setting.
However, what of those who don't engage in the labour market? How will the State ensure equity between all families? For those of us representing significant numbers of parents who are distanced from the labour market, the principle of equality is just as important as establishing a quality standard.
As Garret FitzGerald points out, 153,000 lone parents head approximately one in eight families here.
One-parent families are 3½ times more likely to be in poverty; some 126,000 children live in one-parent families that rely primarily on social welfare support. Supporting these families to leave poverty must be a priority for future developments in our childcare policies.
According to the National Economic and Social Forum, however, almost half of all lone parents have no formal education qualification, which means that, even with childcare support, these parents would be qualified for only low-paid, insecure employment and therefore hard pressed to move out of poverty. It is critical, therefore, that we embrace the widest possible definition of the labour market so that all education and training courses also provide built-in childcare support.
Unfortunately the welfare-to-work transition in Ireland, as independent research published by Open in 2004 illustrated, has developed in a piecemeal fashion. It has failed to take account of the changing profile of the unemployed here.
It additionally requires those seeking employment to carry out highly complex calculations. As increases in social welfare have not been matched by increasing limits for those receiving supplementary support such as a medical card, the transition to work outside the home may be an impossible goal.
Again, the provision of universal childcare will not encourage participation in work if critical supports for healthcare and housing are adversely affected. Indeed, the development of the welfare-to-work system contains important lessons for the design of an appropriate childcare infrastructure; perhaps the most important point is that one size does not fit all.
Another critical piece of the jigsaw is the issue of choice. As FÁS pointed out in its 2004 review of the labour market, there has been no debate in Ireland to date about whether it is best for young children if parents work outside the home. There has been an underlying attitude within the public commentary to date, with a few notable exceptions, that only those working outside the home deserve State supports. This rightly offends many parents. Indeed it reveals a highly unrealistic definition of what constitutes work.
It may seem like empty rhetoric but all parents work. Unpaid domestic labour, most of it provided by women, provides both an enormous contribution to, as well as huge savings for, our economy and our society.
And what of our children? The single biggest consideration we should share is their welfare.
Prioritising the needs of children as opposed to the needs of the economy demands that as a wealthy society we introduce a number of radical measures which will offer support to all families, regardless of the participation of parents in work outside the home.
The links between under-resourced pre-school education and early school-leaving are well documented. Similarly, low educational attainment levels for parents and the ensuing cycle of deprivation for the next generation are entirely predictable. In Ireland, we continue to have unacceptable levels of child poverty, no matter what measure is used.
With income poverty come health, education and other social disadvantages. Open firmly believes that a proper childcare infrastructure would balance these realities with the needs of our economy. It would provide early education places for children, more heavily subsidised for those on low incomes through the tax and/or social welfare system, but with guaranteed quality for all.
This would, of course, require significant investment; however, there is no doubt that the payback for society would be priceless.
• Frances Byrne is director of Open (One Parent Exchange and Network), representing 80 lone-parent groups