A new scheme which will assist low-income families with childcare costs is to be carefully considered for next month’s budget.
It is to be gradually brought in, beginning in September 2017.
The initial plan is to establish a website in which parents can enter their details and childcare provider, and the state may subsidise their childcare costs, with the parents covering the balance.
The state may chose to pay 100% of the costs in some cases.
Thresholds will be decided upon during budgetary talks.
The government plan to consider complications encountered on the student grant website, susi.ie, when designing their new website so as they can design it to be as user-friendly as possible.
Avril McMonagle, manager of Donegal County Childcare, welcomes this new scheme saying that this is something DCYA have been working behind the scenes on for the past five months.
Speaking to Donegal Daily, she said; “We welcome any funding initiative that streamlines and simplifies funding applications for both parents and childcare providers.”
“A number of different childcare funding schemes have been developed in successive budgets over the the years and whilst they are offer welcome financial supports to parents, they are becoming increasingly difficult for parents to navigate and are a huge administration burden on childcare service providers.”
“This new initiative aims to combine a number of existing funding schemes into a single means tested subsidy. We are hopeful that the threshold for this subsidy will be extended to reach low income working parents outside current FIS thresholds as this is the cohort of families that have no support for childcare costs under current funding scheme criteria.”
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