44% in national childcare scheme

Does nothing for those who cannot find a creche place and forced to use a childminer.

Most childminers are €100s more expensive now per week as parents don't get the recent drops as 99% of childminders are not registered.

Should make a credit available to those using a childminder, similar to the Rent Tax Credit.

Revenue allow you to claim the Rent credit even if you do not know your landlord's details. Why punish those with childminders, simply because their minder is not registered?
 
Brendan Burgess said:
full time child care costs will fall by €1100

Number of kids availing of it increasing to 216,000
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Nothing new here from what I can see. They're saying costs will fall by 1100 in 2025 vs 2024 as a result of the already introduced higher NCS rate of €2.14 per hour.
 
Black_Knight said:
Nothing new here from what I can see. They're saying costs will fall by 1100 in 2025 vs 2024 as a result of the already introduced higher NCS rate of €2.14 per hour.
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I assumed that as this increase to 2.14 per hour was part of budget 2023 (but only implemented in sept 24) and that todays announcement meant a further increase (prob sep 25?)
 
rustbucket said:
I assumed that as this increase to 2.14 per hour was part of budget 2023 (but only implemented in sept 24) and that todays announcement meant a further increase (prob sep 25?)
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Methinks that today's announcement was funding to cover the recent grant increase to 2.14.
 
Tickle said:
Methinks that today's announcement was funding to cover the recent grant increase to 2.14.
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I’m not sure that’s correct. Although I am wrong a lot.

See attached. The increase to 2.14was announced as part of budget 2024. It was applied in sep 24. They can’t announce the exact same measure as an increase this budget unless it increases again?

An NCS increase also appeared in budget 2023 in Oct 22 from 0.50 to 1.40. This was applied in Jan 03

Latest News · Applicant Portal

www.ncs.gov.ie
 
They did not announce the same measure this year. In Budget 2024 it was announced that there would be an increase in the NCS grant to 2.14 from September 2024. The extra money allocated today will pay for that increase throughout 2025.

Press release:
....with total funding in 2025 of over €1.37 billion, an increase of 24% or almost €266m. This supports the full year costs of the significant National Childcare Scheme subsidy increases for parents introduced this September 2024.
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I read somewhere that childminders with a few kids will be registered in the future and will therefore be able to get the various funding
 
Last year they only allocated enough to pay for 3 months of the higher NCS subsidy in 2024. Government had to cough up more in this budget to pay for it on a full time basis. So nothing really new here.
 
That makes sense now. Thanks.
 
Annieindublin said:
I read somewhere that childminders with a few kids will be registered in the future and will therefore be able to get the various funding
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Yes, childminders can be registered now and then you get the lower funding fee as a parent.

However, 99% of childminders are not registered (i.e. not declaring it for Tax and/or they don't want a Tusla inspector saying they need to alter their home). So 99% of parents don't get the reduced fees.

Not sure why the parents are punished for childminder not registering
 
It’s years since we used a childminder but it suited us at the time. We trusted her with our kids 30 hours a week. She was a neighbour, we knew her family.

By comparison crèche is a bit of a black box and if something happens staff close ranks.

Anyway our childminder was excellent at her job but was kind of unorthodox in her lifestyle. I don’t think that people like her need regulation.
 
TheJackal said:
Not sure why the parents are punished for childminder not registering
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Major bug bear of mine. Childminders are already required to register with the HSE in order to avail of Childcare services relief.

Institutional childcare is massively inflexible and is a 'one size fits all' approach. The current subsidy has made our childcare cost 25% of what it cost us to use a child minder. That's great, but it's difficult to get a childcare place in our area (so no choice of provider. When incidents happen, there is nowhere to go). Also, we would have preferred our childminder for all sorts of reasons. The subsidy should go direct to the parents, who should choose the most suitable option for their circumstances. The current NCS is corporate welfare.
 
Itchy said:
The subsidy should go direct to the parents, who should choose the most suitable option for their circumstances.
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Isn't the subsidy really just intended to offset the costs of bureaucracy imposed by government (most of it for very good reason) on the bigger providers?
 
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