AS I SEE IT
BY MARIANNE HERON
The Swedes, always ahead when it comes to social provisions, have just introduced paid grandparental leave for three months of the grandchild’s first year. Not quite the same thing as actually paying grandparents, whether working or not, for minding their grandchildren but still a step in that direction. But why can’t the State here pay Granny and Grandpa for helping?
“Proper order!” says Supergran Mary (60) who minds three grandchildren aged three, two and six months four days a week. Both her sons and daughters-in-law are working, they have mortgages and local childcare costs €1,200 a month a child. “They just can’t do it, but aside from that I wouldn’t have it any other way, I love the Grandkids to bits.”
With minding from 8 am to 4.30, “it’s really full on,” says Mary. Her family pay her a small amount for minding and she works on two of her free days to help pay for her family’s mortgage. Taxing Granny pay could be a disincentive though, thinks Mary.
Paying Grandparents might seem great idea, given the soaring cost of childcare and the shortage of places in creches and pre-schools. Or is it? Not all grandparents might agree, taking the view that they have done their bit raising their own families but that are plenty of grandparents here who take on the minding role willingly, allowing the next generation to earn and make ends meet.
It’s not hard to see why grandparents’ help is needed; nearly two thirds of mothers work, with children under school age, and parents can expect to pay an average of just more than €800 a month for childcare according to a 2022 report. This works out at about 20% of average income for a working couple, the highest cost in the 38 member OECD.
Under the National Childcare Services a parent now get €2.14 an hour towards the cost of early learning and childcare. It’s something but still a long, long way off from France where there are free public pre-schools, subsidised private ones and free pre-school for all children over three. Here childcare may not be readily available, with 141 creches having closed in 2022 and 42 more closed half way through last year.
Not surprisingly, grandparents are stepping in to help to varying degrees. A recent report found that 60pc of grandparents were providing some childcare and 15% were providing more than 60 hours a month. It’s the kind of commitment that can vary from being a full-time job and later on might include after school and extra- curricular runs, meals and homework. I have done Granny/Nanny myself. It was great, and laid the foundation for a close relationship with my eldest step granddaughter but, mind you, it was only for one day a week and, however dear she was, I was always glad to hand her back at the end of the day.
There’s a point that grandparents might feel under obligation, given their children’s expectations, to take on minding and while grandcare is done for love, how are they to be thanked ? I have heard of arrangements like paying for a holiday for grandparents (they might need it!) or paying for their car insurance. But should it be up to parents to recompense the grandparents for stepping in to prop up the State’s failure to provide adequate, affordable child care?
“An option for older people to receive payment for this work should be available,” says Maureen Kavanagh, Active Retirement Ireland CEO. “In many families, grandparents play a vital role in providing childcare support. Not only is this help invaluable to working parents but it has positive knock-on effects for society as well.
“However; childcare is already a low paid area and Active Retirement Ireland would not like to see grandparents receiving low pay for such an important role. The contribution older people make to our society is consistently overlooked and undervalued. The State pension in Ireland is considerably less than the Government’s own assessed rate of basic pension adequacy and not linked to wage growth or inflation. Active Retirement Ireland would welcome any scheme that recognises the contribution and worth of older people in our society, and gives a little back to a cohort that gives so much.”
