Rising Costs are wiping out Government’s Affordable Child Care initiative.

Speaking after the release of a Pobal report which showed Wicklow Child Care costs are the second highest in the country, Sinn Fein spokesperson for Social Protection and TD for Wicklow East Carlow said the report shows that government efforts are falling far short of what is required:

Teachta Brady said:

“This report shows that government policy is failing struggling families all over the country with average child care costs running at around 167 Euro per week. The highest is in the Dun Laoghaire Rathdown area however County Wicklow comes in second place at a massive 201 Euro. This, on top of massive hikes in car insurance which hit Wicklow commuters particularly hard, alongside the family home tax and spiralling rent increases indicates that while the government sings merry on a so-called recovery; families all over Wicklow are actually paying proportionately more now than they were during the height of Austerity just to get by.”

Teachta Brady went on to say that the government child care cost strategy has simply failed to take into account the rising costs of family life:

“In our pre-budget statement and in our manifesto we outlined clearly a suite of affordable measures which could be applied to help families cope with the cost of childcare. Any benefit that might have been gained for families through the government’s affordable childcare scheme is now essentially wiped out by rising costs everywhere else. Effectively families are worse off, with Wicklow families paying amongst the highest fees in the country. The government and Minister Catherine Zappone need to go back to the drawing board and come up with an affordable child care scheme that does what is says on the tin, we need to replace the current system which essentially benefits nobody.”