Mother Ireland angry about childcare

If the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world, imagine what it could do to the Irish political scene at the next election if it decided to seek revenge on the Government for failing to deliver affordable childcare.

Retribution Day is coming: the Government knows it and the opposition hopes to exploit it. Parents, mostly women, are fed up being stretched to the limit by having to pay for childcare places at prices that often amount to the equivalent of a second mortgage. Others, who want to further their education or work outside the home but can't afford the cost of formal childcare, are also fed up having to inveigle family relatives to bail them out or failing that, having to forgo the opportunity.

Mother Ireland is angry; Bertie and Mary better watch out. They may be heading for an almighty spanking next time they go knocking on her door looking for votes. The coalition partners already got a taste of her displeasure during the Meath and Kildare North by-elections in March. Then, Government ministers were astonished to find that the cost of childcare ranked with health, housing and transport as a major concern for voters. It was a very loud wake-up call. So much so, that one week before voting and amid accusations of cynical political timing, the Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell (who, for some odd reason, has responsibility for childcare) suddenly announced funding for 2,544 new childcare places.

Catherine Murphy, the Independent candidate who snatched Charlie McCreevy's old seat from Fianna Fáil in Kildare North, needed no alarm call. From the very start of her campaign she identified childcare as a key concern for voters.

And it's an issue that's not going away. The number of women working outside the home has exploded in the past 25 years and is set to keep rising while the number of childcare places hasn't kept pace at all: a case of demand exceeding supply and costs soaring.

It's also an issue that's becoming rapidly politicised. For the past two weeks, callers to the Marian Finucane radio show have been angrily pouring forth on the subject. At one point the discussion degenerated into a row between the efficacy of crèche-care versus a mother's care at home; the presenter gave her female listeners a piece of advice:

"This debate just goes on and on... and yet it always comes down to women sniping with each other. What you have to do is sort it out politically in terms of policy rather than going at one another's throats, because everybody's circumstances are different and some people seriously have no choices because of economic circumstances."

Sorting it out politically means holding politicians to account and letting them feel the heat. Not surprisingly, all the political parties are responding. Indeed, the race is on between the Government and opposition to produce the child-care policy that will most appeal to hard-pressed working parents (particularly mothers) at the next election.

In the past few months, the PDs, the Greens and Labour have all launched policy documents promising a range of benefits, incentives and schemes to sort out the crisis. Last weekend Pat Rabbitte made his billion-euro plan on childcare a precondition for signing-up to a coalition government. Behind the scenes, the Government too is working away on a package of measures that it hopes will trump those offered by its political rivals.

In other words, Women of Ireland, it pays to unite: you have nothing to lose but your crippling crèche fees and daily stress. Maybe the feminists were right after all when they said: "The personal is political" because childcare couldn't be more personal and now it's highly political.

Ursula Halligan is TV3's Political Editor and presenter of The Political Party, Sundays, 5pm