The Yates Anthology: We must broaden debate on childcare
The debate surrounding Children’s Minister James Reilly’s Inter-Departmental Group Report into future childcare services is uniformly one dimensional. The singular narrative for parents of children under four years is childcare is unaffordable, with costs of up to €1,200 per month per child; one free preschool year must be doubled; taxpayers should pick up all consequent costs.
No one demurred from “Ireland should copy Nordic countries” to ensure careers are unaffected by burdens of rearing kids.
State costs on childcare/early education amount to €260m. An additional annual €500m would be absorbed by taxpayers if the report was implemented forthwith.
This is a net transfer from everybody else in society to a specific cohort of young parents — at the expense of other competing spending commitments on housing, healthcare, mainline education and welfare. Some contrarian whataboutery is required to give context to these political choices.
Read the full article by Ivan Yeats in the Irish Independent here
