Childcare providers feeling the pinch according to one business Tipperary business owner

Two rural businesses in Newport Town in the Tipperary North constituency have voiced their concerns over the cost of operating costs in the rural town on the Limerick border.

Candidates are out on the campaign trail over the past few weeks and have heard from all and sundry of the countless issues facing the working class in Ireland at the moment, and that can be seen in Newport in the north of the county.

The town has started to explode in population in recent years with an influx of people moving out from the large urban centre around Limerick City.

Despite this, the challenges are still numerous in the rural townland with many businesses not immune to the rising costs of operating, and many feel that the Government could and should be doing more to alleviate the pressure being felt keenly by many business owners across Ireland who are in similar circumstances.

Rory McGrath is the founder and owner of The Homework Hub which services seven schools in the surrounding Newport hinterland, providing after school education and activities to students.

Operating since 2016, Mr. McGrath highlighted the exponential costs of running the business day to day, and he was particularly aggrieved with the Governments outdated supports that he initially availed of back in 2020. “My fees for parents are the same as they were when we started in 2016 and there’s not much you could buy today that you could buy in 2016,” he said.

“That’s mainly down to the fact that we went into a fee freeze in 2020 after the Government offered us core funding.

“So part of that was, they offered us ‘core funding’ where they pay you this lump of money to freeze your fees.

“Unfortunately though, the cost of running a business and the cost of living has gone up that’s no secret; inflation is massive. So basically, parents are getting a great deal out of it through the National Childcare Scheme - which is fantastic- but at the same time, it means that we as a business are caught.

“The Government will tell you that the providers are being supported well through core funding and they say that they have looked at the cost of doing business and factored in but the report they are going off is some report from back in 2017 that is completely outdated.

“So really, my biggest gripe is that we’re stuck in a fee freeze while we’re having to deal with massive increases in the cost of energy, food, and paying our staff.

“In any other business, if the costs are going up you pass the cost onto the consumer, that’s how most businesses work.

“We can’t do that so basically the Government is expecting us to run champagne childcare on a lemonade budget.”

He highlighted the blight of smaller providers in this climate by saying: “Like, we’ve been able to absorb it because we have the numbers but if you’re a small, rural provider with small numbers you just won’t have that buffer to survive so that would be my biggest concern going forward.

“What are they going to do to address this, because small providers are already closing and it’s only a matter of time before things go into the red,” he finished.