More Childcare Clamour

The National Economic and Social Forum is recommending that all children should receive a year's free childcare before they go to primary school, at a cost to the State of €136 million a year.  More significantly the organization wants paid maternity leave to be increased to 26 weeks and for parents to have the option to stay at home for a year after their child is born.  The report says the benefits of investing in high-quality pre-school services include better educational outcomes for children and a return to the State of more than €7 for each €1 spent. 

The NESF points out that children under six years make up almost 10% of the population and the number of women working outside the home has jumped by 60% in the last 10 years. Ireland continues to rate among the lowest investors in early childhood care and education policy. Public investment is less than 0.2% of economic growth, compared to the EU average of 0.5%. Ireland’s investment is also in stark contrast to Denmark’s 0.8% and France’s 0.7%.

Meanwhile John Waters uses his column in the Irish Times to attack the "state feminists" of the National Women's Council for its scheme

for the farming out of Irish children from the age of one - a direct import of the disastrous US "daycare" model already identified as causing massive damage to young children. Research since the early 1990s indicates that children in full-time day care in the US are nearly three times as likely to develop serious behavioural problems as those cared for at home.

I'm not in a position to conclude whether he's right or wrong about this but I believe he has a good point to make about perceiving the issue purely in economic terms.  Waters makes the interesting point that it is Fianna Fáil's fear of being seen as "out of touch" that has driven that party away from its conservative roots and towards a policy that may not be in the party's long term interests.  He cites Minister of State Frank Fahy's response at the recent launch of the NWCI proposals that he was "not aware of any plans" to provide support for parents who stay at home as an example of this.  He thinks, "bizarrely", that we may have to wait for the Labour Party's policies to "talk sense about childcare".

Comments

[Zigi Goldberg]

Here's some more information on the disasterous daycare described by Mr. Waters...

[Zigi Goldberg]

Or, as it sometimes correctly spelled, "disastrous" daycare!