Young families are “crippled” with the cost of childcare and the Government’s failure to move towards making it free is “just stupid” at this point, Ciara Kelly has warned.

The National Women’s Council (NWC) is calling on the Government to finally launch a State-run childcare system – insisting it is the only “commonsense solution to the childcare crisis currently engulfing the country”.

The council made the call after it emerged that several private childcare providers have decided to pull out of the Government-backed Core Funding Scheme and substantially increase their fees.

It is urging the Government to launch a pilot scheme in this year’s budget before taking full control of the childcare system in the coming years.

Pre-school birthday party. Image: Alamy

On Newstalk Breakfast this morning, Ciara Kelly said young families are “crippled with the cost of childcare” and it is often young women that are affected the most.

“It is largely young women who take time out of their careers to mind their kids,” she said.

“There isn't enough of a difference between what they earn and what they would pay in childcare, so going to work doesn't have any benefit to them and it is a real problem.”

She noted that the issue is totally separate to those who decide they would prefer to stay in the home – adding that for lots of people, returning to work with a young child is now “really, really difficult”.

“So women's careers are affected, it increases the gender pay gap and it also really damages women's pensions – we hardly ever remember the fact that women's pensions are affected by what work they undertook during the course of their careers.

“So it's an enormous problem.”

Pensions time bomb

Ciara said she often hears the argument that people who choose to have children should pay for them.

“Here is the news flash, here's the breaking news – we want people to have children,” she said.

“In fact, we need people to have children because we have a vastly ageing, ticking time bomb of a population.

“We're going to have, instead of having five workers to one pensioner, we're going to have two workers to one pensioner.

“We're desperate for people to have children; we just haven't copped on to it yet.

“So, the idea that we are disincentivising people from having children and indeed, we're disincentivizing people from working in our economy, is just stupid to be very frank.

“It is bad for families, it is bad for women and it's bad for kids.”

Election

Fellow presenter Jonathan Healy said he can’t understand how Government does not see free childcare as an election-winning issue.

“We spend money on the wrong things a lot in this country and let's face it, we have an awful lot of money right now,” he said.

“We've never had a better opportunity to finally tackle this issue and to deal with it in a way that will benefit not just this generation, but future generations.”

Education

He said the State “never looked back” from providing free second-level education and largely free third level.

“Look at the benefit that everybody has accrued from that, yet we are still dancing around wondering, should we, shouldn't we?” he said.

“Why the State just doesn't accept this is beyond me.

“I suspect they're afraid they'll be caught on it in bad times as well as good but we will always, as a society, benefit from young people getting education early and I cannot understand why this is not an election winner for them in the same way that free primary school books, free secondary school books.

“All of those things have been well received by everybody; why are they diddling and dithering about this?”

The NWC has noted that the childcare crisis has continued to grow in recent years – despite the State doubling its investment in the current system.

It is calling on the Government to “change tactics” and turn its focus to a fully State-run system.