Number of registered childminders down more than 20% over past five years

There has been more than a 20 per cent reduction in the number of in-home childminders registered with Tusla over the past five years, resulting in the majority of families using these services being unable to avail of Government subsidies.

As part of Budget 2023, the Government announced increased subsidies for parents using the National Childcare Scheme (NCS) with the hourly rate increasing from 50c per hour up to €1.40 per hour. The changes will apply from next January and could be worth up to €2,106 per child.

However, childminders who are not registered with Tusla, the child and family agency, cannot be considered for the scheme. There is no centralised registration system for childminders, who typically work in people’s homes, but it is estimated there are 15,000 childminders in Ireland.

[ Thousands of parents using childminders must wait until 2024 to access new childcare subsidies ]

[ Childcare costs to be cut by up to 25%, but how exactly does it work? ]

Figures obtained by The Irish Times under the Freedom of Information Act show there were 70 childminders registered with Tusla as of the end of July. This is down from 90 in 2018, and is the lowest since the agency began taking registration in 2016.

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Under the Child Care Act 1991, childminders who are minding four or more preschool children or seven or more children of mixed ages should register with Tusla.

A spokeswoman for Tusla said that as childminding was often a single-handed business, it may “not be feasible for many sole childminders to cater for that number of children”.

A “significant amount” of childminding also takes place within the existing family relationships, the spokeswoman added, which many may regard as a more informal arrangement that does not require registration.

Childminding Ireland, the national body for childminders, said the reality was that “the vast majority of parents using childminding services cannot avail of the NCS”.

“Childminders who mind small numbers of children cannot register with Tusla and, consequently, cannot offer NCS to parents using their services due to current legislative exemptions,” a statement said.

The body said it understood the natural desire to include parents using its services in the NCS as soon as possible, but that “it will, and should take considerable time to create and implement a regulatory system that is suitable for childminders”.

“It is, therefore, critically important that an interim solution be found, to allow parents of more than 88,000 children access to the NCS financial supports. A solution will be found if there is a desire to look for it,” they added.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Children said the restriction of the NCS to registered providers only was “to ensure that public funding is provided where there is assurance of the quality of provision”.

“The National Action Plan for Childminding 2021-2028 sets out a plan for extending State support and regulation to a much wider cohort of childminders on a phased basis over the coming years,” the spokeswoman said.

Speaking last month, Minister for Children Roderic O’Gorman said it would not be possible to bring childminders under the umbrella of the scheme until the end of 2023 or early 2024.