Quality childcare is so hard to find that many potential parents are investigating creches before conception and timing births to coincide with available places. shows positive. More women than ever before are working - 47.1 per cent of women over 15 years of age were in the workforce in the last quarter of 1999, compared to 31.2 per cent in 1988.
As a new school-year beckons, the childcare crisis is as bad for parents as ever, according to Ms Martina Murphy of the National Children's Nurseries Association.
While new childcare centres are being established, equal numbers of places with traditional childminders are being lost. The numbers of children needing full-time and after-school care continues to rise, while the number of places available falls due to the Childcare Regulations of 1996, which effectively closed down at least 2,600 childminders who could not afford to comply. Places with traditional childminders are also being lost because, in a booming economy, there are too many other, more lucrative, career opportunities for women in the workforce. The Government may have boasted of investing £290 million in childcare over the next six years under the National Development Plan, but only £2 million of that has yet been spent.
"This investment will be significant, but I think the effects have not yet been seen to any great extent," said Mr Owen Keenan, chief executive of Barnardos. One obstacle to the development of new childcare facilities is the difficulty in getting planning permission. Aer Rianta and Esat Digifone were both refused planning permission when trying to develop childcare facilities near them.
Despite a need for 35,000 new childcare places in the next decade, many local authorities are refusing to allow creches to open in residential areas, which is precisely where parents want them to be. Many councils are not taking on board the new draft guidelines to local councils by the Minister for Environment, Mr Dempsey. The guidelines recommend that there should be one creche for every 75 houses and that creches should be within walking distance of a national school, clearly placing them within local communities.
The cost of childcare is astronomical for most parents. In Dublin, creches charge between £100 and £150 per week. Registered childminders charge a minimum of £3 per hour - £120 per week per child. And a nanny cannot be had for less than £250 per week, if you can find one. One element adding to escalating costs are staff wages. Childcare workers are demanding 50 per cent higher salaries than they were paid last year.
Sandra, who works for a computer software development company, faces an annual outlay of £6,000 on childcare to a creche, which amounts to £11,000 of her income before tax, giving her very little incentive to remaining working in an area experiencing a skills shortage.
But at least Sandra has found childcare. Fiona, a parent of a three-month-old boy in Galway, is a classic case of a mother who needs to return to her career outside the home but cannot find anyone to mind her baby. Like all parents, she wants her son to be cared for by a nurturing, consistent minder (either in her home or the minder's home), who will love her baby, contribute to his well-being, stimulate him and give him the cuddles and reassurance he needs when he's off-form. In her search for that special childminder, Fiona has tried word-of-mouth and failed. She has looked in vain for notices in shopping centres and community notice boards.
She got the health board list of registered childminders and telephoned around, only to learn that none had a place. Daycare centres are the next option, but many of the creches in Fiona's area will not take babies, because the required three-to-one ratio of babies to staff makes it too expensive. Some will take babies, but they tend to have high staff-turnovers.
Fiona has yet to find one where, she feels, her son will receive loving, consistent handling from a single, devoted carer. She put an advertisement in the paper for a qualified carer three weeks ago and did not receive one response. Next week she will advertise again. The childcare crisis is so vast and complex that there is no magic wand solution. Mr Keenan is concerned that the Budget's approach to the childcare crisis was motivated not by the needs of children, but by skill shortages in the economy, with the emphasis on getting more women working outside the home by providing more creche places.
Unfortunately, large nurseries were left out of the last Budget, which provided staffing and capital grants for creches with no more than 20 children. Yet a creche needs 20 children or more to be financially viable.
Mr Keenan argues: "Parents have less choice about whether they work due to soaring house prices. They have less choice as to the range of childcare, because childminders are difficult to get.
And they have less choice regarding quality, since the best quality childcare may be unaffordable for them."
Get it Right: A Parents' Guide to Choosing Quality Daycare and Check it Out: A Parent's Guide to Child Care (Pre-School) Regulations are available free of charge from Barnardos (01) 4530355.
