Childcare on the agenda in the dail today

But they'll be funding everything by paying taxes - VAT, income tax ,excise etc etc. If our workforce is made up of migrants won't they pay the same tax that our kids would pay? What's the difference between migrants paying for everything and our kids paying for everything? I'm not being pedantic. I genuinely don't understand why there seems to be general agreement when someone brings up the "We need to have kids to fund us" line

"What's the difference between migrants paying for everything and our kids paying for everything? I'm not being pedantic. I genuinely don't understand why there seems to be general agreement when someone brings up the "We need to have kids to fund us" line"

I don't see it (migrants "paying for everything") ever happening, but to take this argument to its logical conclusion, suppose for a minute that our country has a huge influx of immigrants over the next 15 years, sufficient to bring about a situation where they constitute a majority of the tax take. With this tax majority would obviously come a numerical and ultimately a political majority, and a political unwillingness to spend their money on supporting the greying (mostly non-immigrant) population. Certainly, if Ireland were to see demographic changes on this scale, I think the point would be largely academic, but as it is clearly not going to happen, I don't think there is much to be gained from debating the issue.

Our pension system is based on the current generation paying PRSI to fund the pensions of those who are retired.
51% of Irish women work and the EU has a target of raising that to 60%. There has been nearly a 20% increase over the last decade. So the government has to give some incentive/encouragement to keep women working.
Migrant workers are entitled to have their families living with them but childcare costs more than the minimum wage which they are earning.
It has been recognised that most mothers will give up work because it is not economically viable for them to continue even on a part time basis. This information and more is available on the SIPTU website. Childcare is part of the next round of wage agreements.

If a working mum gets a tax credit for childcare how is someone who doesn't have kids funding it ? If she stays at home she doesn't pay any tax. If she goes to work and gets a reduction on the tax that she pays then she is still paying more into the system than if she stayed at home. Childcare is a cost of a working mum going to work. If she doesn't have childcare then she can't go and not only is she not paying into the system then her husband is paying less because he gets her tax credits.

i heard on the radio that the proposal will be to give tax relief (8000) to chilminders who mind kid in their own home and to increase the number of kids to five instead of 3 before they need to register to the healthboard.

Childminders getting tax relief does it mean that their price will drop ? Shouldn't the gouvernement propose in this case a minimun and a maximun a childminder should charge in order to get this relief. I don't see the point to give tax break if the price are not dropping down.

Regarding the number of kids, I do think no matter on many children a childminder mind she should be registered with the healthboard as soon as she is minding one kid other than hers.

What about people using creches ?

>>A lot of grannies and grandads will be delighted, but the long term effect will be to loosen family ties, as many grandparents\sisters\in laws will no longer be playing the roles that they currently play.

I don't think it will ever be COMPULSORY to send kids to creche/preschool.

In communist East Germany in the 1950's they had a system where the parent that stayed at home to mind the children got a payment of X amount. If both parents worked then they could nominate another person (Granny, neighbour, sister etc) to receive the payment. The payment was tax-free and did not affect any social welfare benefits that the recipient got.
I don't know what the economic effect would be but introducing a large amount of money into the economy usually fuels inflation.

>> If people who have kids get a tax break maybe those of us who choose not to (or cannot) have kids should get a tax break on another aspect of their lifestyle.

Having kids is not a lifestyle choice. I have four words for you:

SURVIVAL OF THE SPECIES

If you can have kids, but choose not to, that's the lifestyle choice. At least until we can create some other form of continuing the species. Cloning I suppose. Hell, we'll clone them at age 21 so we can eliminate education as well as childcare costs. (Of course we'll create plenty of uneducated models too to meet our unskilled labour needs).

Childminders getting tax relief does it mean that their price will drop ? Shouldn't the gouvernement propose in this case a minimun and a maximun a childminder should charge in order to get this relief. I don't see the point to give tax break if the price are not dropping down.


It would have been madness to introduce tax relief to parents before introducing something like this, vast majority of children are minded by a minder, vast majority of minders not tax compliant. Result of tax relief for parents - clamouring for the few creche places - prices going up. Plus SAHMs up in arms!!


Regarding the number of kids, I do think no matter on many children a childminder mind she should be registered with the healthboard as soon as she is minding one kid other than hers.

Absolutely agree, can't identify them unless their registered with Revenue though.