Social Democrats TD Daniel Ennis has said that childcare costs are like a “second mortgage.”
The Dublin Central TD said that “parents in Ireland are paying the highest rates of childcare fees in Europe; it is putting huge pressure and strain on families.”
Ennis said that in speaking to constituents, they are not seeing or feeling the promised reduction in childcare costs touted by Fine Gael.
“They are feeling the strain,” he warned, and that families could not wait until next September for the planned reductions in childcare costs to kick in.
Fine Gael junior minister Emer Higgins explained that from September 2027, the maximum fees that early learning and childcare providers in receipt of core funding can charge will be reduced across all bands.
The maximum fee cap for bands B and E is being reduced from €280 to €250 per week, and all other bands are being proportionally reduced.
The majority of services have fees below the new caps and will continue to be subject to existing fee management controls, the Dublin Mid-West TD explained.
She further explained that core funding for childcare costs is a supply-side grant, and that is different from direct state funding of childcare.
Higgins said the state’s investment must not be absorbed by “unnecessary fee increases,” which reveals a subtle difference in approach between Fine Gael and the Soc Dems.
Fine Gael believes that if the state invests in a project or system, it should not have to shoulder the burden of cost overruns and eventually expect some form of profit participation from it.
The Social Democrats believe that the state should invest in a system and fund it regardless of whether the state takes a hit from it or not.
Ennis said that the government’s own €550 per month cap does not meet the scale of the current crisis in childcare costs.
“If your child is in childcare for more than 50 hours in one week, the €550 per month cap will not apply. If your child is in first class or above, the €550 per month cap will not apply. Again, in my own constituency, we have some of the highest levels in the country of providers not in core funding. It is some of the highest prices of anywhere in the country and anywhere in Europe.”
He said, “the government said a key priority in this budget was making early learning and childcare more affordable for families, yet for so many families nothing is going to change for them; I am one of those families.”
“In the playground beside the crèche, I am talking to so many families who are scratching their heads and saying, ‘we are not going to benefit from that’.”
“They are going to continue to pay astronomical fees for childcare and they will continue to struggle. A lot of them are keen to find a childcare space. I cannot help but use the phrase that the Minister of State is misleading us here. The €550 per month cap is misleading us. It is throwing money at a burning house,” he remarked.
Minister Higgins stated, “the government has committed to reducing childcare fees to €200 per month over the lifetime of the government.”
“It is why childcare received such a huge injection of investment in this year’s budget. We want to support parents by bringing down fees,” she said.