When their four-year-old daughter, Megan, was a baby, actors Owen Roe and Michele Forbes both appeared in Marina Carr's play, The Mai, at the Peacock. Finding reliable childcare for Megan every night was impossible. Their solution? They were not on stage at the same time, so they took turns holding the baby off-stage.
The stress of combining careers with child-rearing in the absence of a State-supported childcare policy is familiar to all working parents. Owen, who plays the Minister for Foreign Affairs in the TV series The Ambassador, is currently caring for Megan full-time while Michele, who is seven months pregnant, appears in Amazing Grace at the Peacock. Owen knows first-hand the guilt and stress involved in finding affordable, reliable, quality childcare in an unregulated black market.
"We know so many parents who are not entirely happy with their childminders and are still having to pay half of their after-tax salaries to pay them. Other parents stop working to become full-time child-carers for a few years, but often I sense that they are not entirely happy with the situation," he says.
Owen and Megan will be among the many parents and children marching in Dublin on Saturday afternoon in protest at the failure of successive governments to address the childcare crisis.
The march has been organised by the National Women's Council, which is concerned that the adults of the future are being cared for by an ad hoc childcare industry, much of which is in the black economy. The council is calling for:
Free or subsidised childcare for families living in poverty
Substantial tax relief for parents, even where only one parent is working
A tax allowance of £5,000 for childminders, to help bring them into the formal economy
Increased child benefit
Also among the marchers will be Brid Ni Neachtain, an actor in T na G's Irish soap, Ros na Run, her husband Fiach Mac Conghail, director of the Project Arts Centre in Dublin, and their daughters Luisne (two) and Siofra (five). "I'm not the marching type but I will be marching on Saturday because I feel strongly about this issue. I think that all working women do," Brid says. "It's about the right to work, if you really think about it. And it's about women living in poverty being able to go to work and improve their living standards. If you want to work, your childcare situation should be the best that it can be. The question of the quality of childcare in the black economy really concerns me. We are moulding tomorrow's adults and that's very important. I would urge all parents to come march with us on Saturday."
Like many parents, she resents having to pay £130 per week for childcare out of her after-tax income. Last year, she and her daughters were based in Galway with Ros na Run, while Fiachra remained in Dublin. This placed so much stress on family life that, this year, Fiachra will remain in Dublin with Siofra while Luisne travels between Galway and Dublin with Brid. The couple will need to hire two childminders, one in Galway and one in Dublin, at about £130 per week each - amounting to £260 out of after-tax income. Brid believes that parents paying childminders should be entitled to full tax relief. "It's not like we're asking for something for nothing," she says.
"Irish parents pay 20 per cent of their pre-tax income on childcare compared to a European average of 8 per cent. It's an issue for fathers as well as mothers," says Brid.
Soundings indicate that the Government has taken the childcare crisis on board, but may not yet be prepared to act. Fianna Fail's and the PDs' election promises included provision of a £2,000 annual tax allowance for childcare and £2,000 in tax relief for married people who stay at home to mind their children. The Department of Finance has commissioned the Expert Working Group on Childcare to make recommendations, which it will do in December, too late for the Budget. It is understood that the Minister for Finance, Charlie McCreevy, may acknowledge the childcare crisis in his December Budget speech, while deferring action. He may then take action in the Finance Bill in 1999, or wait until the next Budget.
How parents react to this hesitancy is a matter of how thin their patience is wearing. What McCreevy promises, or doesn't, on Budget day will surely be influenced by the number of parents who turn up on Saturday.
The national march, organised by the National Women's Council of Ireland, will take place on Saturday at 2.30 p.m. from the Garden of Remembrance, Parnell Square, Dublin, to Dail Eireann.
