“Dealing with the stress of getting your unborn child to daycare… it shouldn’t be like that.”

For parents, long waiting lists and monthly childcare fees of up to 1,400 euros have a significant impact on family life and force some people out of work.

The Irish Independent spoke to childcare providers and parents about how the crisis is negatively affecting both sides.

Samantha O’Neill, 33, found out about her pregnancy in March last year and began contacting daycare centers three months later – even before telling her family about her pregnancy.

The first-time mother lives in East Wall, Dublin and most nurseries in the area had no baby rooms, while the rest had waiting lists until 2023 or 2024.

She found a spot with availability for December 2022 in Inchicore, which is about a 35-minute drive from her family’s home on a day with little to no traffic.

Ms O’Neill gave birth to their son Oghran last November and her maternity leave is due to end in May, but she has to take 16 weeks of unpaid leave, seven weeks of annual leave and all of her parental leave to try to keep him out until December.

“Coping with the stress of getting a seat is a bit of a nightmare,” she said. “There are many women who are stressed about their pregnancy.

“It’s at the stage where you have to call a crèche and jot down a name even before you’re out of the woods at risk and it can be so disheartening to call and then cross them off a list if something happens.

“It shouldn’t be like that. People should be able to get childcare for their children.”

Ms O’Neill, whose mother has offered to help but lives 35km in the opposite direction to the crèche, said people should not have to rely on their parents for support.

“We want a second child, but that’s not financially possible, even with two working parents with good salaries,” she said.

“I shouldn’t have to choose between staying at home and going to work. It’s almost gone in the opposite direction where you can’t go to work anymore.”

As part of its attempts to tackle the ongoing crisis, the government announced a €221 million core funding program that will support the early childhood education and childcare sector. Scheduled to come into force on September 1, it aims to improve affordability by freezing fees and creating better wages and working conditions for staff.

In order to receive a grant, providers must agree not to increase fees.

However, early childhood care and education service providers (ECCE) have called the plan “seriously flawed” and warned that thousands of parents could face a childcare-free fall.

Barbara Brennan has run a pre-school in Dublin for 10 years and believes the subsidy program has not matched inflation. She claimed she’ll only be €20 better off on the new plan.

“The larger services win and the smaller services lose in this system,” she said.

“Life is such at the moment that everything is increasing, everything I buy – every roll of toilet paper, every pencil and every crayon – everything has increased, utilities are increasing. I was told that my cell phone will be out.

“Nothing has stabilized and yet I am expected to maintain my service at the same level as it has been since 2017, which is incredible.”

Her preschool serves 15 children and she employs one part-time worker.

She used to charge fees, but now operates her service under the ECCE program, which means that the state pays her a set amount per child if she provides a pre-school service free of charge.

“The problem with funding is that even though I’m a manager and owner, I’m only getting paid for 15 hours even though I work between 22 and 25 hours a week,” Ms Brennan said. “I have to clean the apartment, prepare the children’s room, do paperwork in the afternoon and other things.

“I run it from the back of the house, deep in the heart of the community. They are local children and they depend on me. The alternative is when people like me are gone parents have to send their kids to daycare, but daycare will tell you they don’t want kids for three hours, they want kids for eight hours.

“We have many teachers and nurses who like this model for their children. They don’t need full-time care and they don’t have options when people like me leave.”

Ms Brennan said this year has been the most stressful of her career. She hoped the new funding model would help improve the situation and better support her employees, but fears it won’t have the desired effect.

“I pay more than most people would pay, but they make more,” she said. “Primary school teachers get paid all summer, my staff have to sign up. It annoys me to fill out the welfare form every year. We need to be seen as educators and I have a feeling the department sees us as babysitters.”

Providers, particularly those offering the ECCE system, say the core funding program is withdrawing two previously available additional streams of funding, describing it as “catastrophic”.

They say another year of underfunding will force them to close their stores.

More than 800 members of the association of early childhood providers who were interviewed had serious concerns about the support program.

Nearly 70 percent said that after assessing the feasibility of allocating core funding for their service, they did not believe they could sustain their business, while more than a third said they would oppose the program.

FECP members say it favors large, profitable city providers and penalizes the smaller, community-friendly providers.

The Irish Independent contacted the Children’s Department for comment.