Northside opposition TDs have said that more needs to be done to reduce childcare costs.
Last week, the Dáil heard a Sinn Féin motion which called on the government to reduce childcare costs for families, with research from the party showing that average childcare costs are more than €800 a month across Ireland.
During the 2024 general election campaign, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael both campaigned on reducing childcare costs for parents, pledging to reduce costs to just €200 per month.
The manifesto pledges have failed to materialise, as election promises rarely do, and local TDs have wasted no time hitting the government on the issue.
Dublin West TD and Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman, who served as Minister for Children in the last government, said he regretted not being able to do more to bring childcare costs down.
O’Gorman, however, did provide insight from his time as Minister as a fix for the government to implement.
He said that the Garda vetting of application for childcare professionals is now taking longer than it used to.
He noted that a new European criminal records informatio nsystem, ECRIS, has been launched.
O’Gorman explained that if the applicant has an EU address, it adds ten days to the application, and if the applicant has a UK address, it adds 20 days to the application.
“This is really problematic because many childcare providers are operating close to ratio. If they go below ratio, they may well have to shut a room, which creates great disruption for parents. If they are not able to get new childcare staff into the setting quickly, this is a consequence,” he explained.
The Dublin West TD said that the issue is a “significant extra burden”, and while it is an “important set of checks,” he said that pressure should be received for childcare providers which in turn, would help reduce costs for parents.
Social Democrats TD Rory Hearne said that the economics of childcare was a major issue for him.
“People have raised the particular issue with me of young people in this country who can and want to have children but are deciding it is not possible because they cannot afford it.”
“Alongside a cost-of-living crisis, we now have a cost-of-having-babies crisis in this country. Young people want to have children, but they just cannot afford it,” the Dublin North-West TD said.
“The cost-of-living and cost-of-housing crises have become so bad, our younger generations cannot afford children, or if they have one child, they cannot afford a second.”
Hearne said, “we are one of the richest countries in the world on paper. The government has record surpluses, but it has failed to provide the most basic aspect of a functioning society, namely, the capacity for people to afford to raise children without living in fear and worry about being able to pay for the very basic costs.”
The Social Democrats TD highlighted a report from Barnados, which found that almost half of parents are skipping meals to ensure their children have enough to eat.
Further statistics from Hearne found that the cost of raising a child has increased by 60% in the past decade.
Hearne criticised the government for breaking their own promises; a major 2024 election promise was capping childcare fees at €200 a month, yet Sinn Féin research has found that the costs are now more than €800 a month across Ireland.
“It is time to deliver public affordable childcare that provides decent employment for workers in the sector,” he said.