The State should offer grants to grandparents for stepping in and helping with their grandchildren’s care, according to Ciara Kelly.

She was speaking after the Swedish parliament approved a new law that allows parents to transfer 45 days of their parental leave to grandparents – a figure that jumps to 90 days for single parents.

Ciara said she would support a similar move in Ireland – and would even consider going further.

“I think it's a really good idea,” she said.

“I think, to be honest, we need to start getting real a little bit about this in this country – we need to have a conversation about this.

“We act, currently like, ‘Well, if you want to have kids, that's on you.’

“That's kind of our attitude and we're behind the curve, you know, compared to almost every other European country in terms of how we provide childcare and how we subsidise childcare.

“The truth of it is this, we want people to have children.

“We have an ageing population; we have one of the fastest-ageing populations in Europe.

“We are going to be moving from five workers supporting one pensioner to two workers supporting one pensioner.

“We are desperately keen on people to have children, whether we acknowledge that or not and anything that supports families [should be applauded].”

Grandparents

Ciara said there is “something lovely” about grandparents minding children instead of families paying for childcare – adding that she believes they should be paid for their efforts.

“I would probably go further than this,” she said. “I actually think paying stipends or grants to grandparents and recognising them as sort of valid and important carers [would be valuable].”

When it was put to her that the plan would be open to “widespread fraud”, she noted that 83% of Irish grandparents already help with childcare.

“I think we have, absolutely, our heads in the sand about our population, about where our population is going and about how much we should value families and children and childcare in this country,” she said.

“I think this is an innovative [solution] and a good thing.”

Childcare

Fellow presenter Shane Coleman said Ireland definitely needs to do more when it comes to childcare – but he is not sure enlisting grandparents is the answer.

“There has been big increases in the last two budgets but it needs to go further,” he said.

“Is this the way to go about it? Grandparents? I'm not sure it is. I think it could put more pressure on them.”

Taxes

He noted that if we want to support grandparents caring for children, we are going to “have to pay for it”.

“That means we have to stop all this nonsense about cutting USC and cutting inheritance tax and cutting every tax we have to pay for these things,” he said.

“The Commission for Taxation has made that clear.”

In Sweden, parents are entitled to 480 days (16 months) of paid leave per child.

Compensation for 390 days is based on full income, while the remaining 90 days offer a fixed rate of 180 kronor (€15.90) per day.

Additionally, parents can work reduced hours until the child turns eight and government employees can extend this benefit until the child is 12.