Many parents face a nightmare over creche places for their children. In some cases, the cost is enormous.
A survey of 217 creches in Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown showed that the vast majority charged over €1,000 a month.
In other cases, parents cannot even find a place because so many professional early years educators are leaving their jobs.
The government’s solution is to give a subsidy of €2.14 an hour and get this deducted from the bill. To avail of this subsidy, creche owners must comply with certain conditions.
However, some creche owners such as Little Rainbows are withdrawing from the scheme in order to be able to charge higher costs.
Because childcare is run as a private business, there is a squeeze of the wages of professional early years educators. Many of these hold Montessori degrees but they are still on low wages. As a result, the turnover rate for staff stands at 25% a year.
There is a solution -but this government will not embrace it.
A public not for profit childcare service should be set up by the state. It should pay staff decent wages and cut costs for parents.
This service should allow private creches to opt into this service and guarantee decent pay for staff and managers.