Really annoying

Another politician gets her two cent in on childcare, one Senator Mary White in the Times to be exact. Pols love this thing, the whole ''think of the children'' bit. Lets them to look caring and concerned about hard pressed ordinary people, the expense of it, to worry about the effect it has on society....blah,blah,blah. If you can get people in the heart you can bypass their brains i suppose. Anyway the good senators idea amounts to the same idea that all pols in Ireland have for every problem or supposed problem, which is throw money and regulations at it. Ironically the headline reads ''New approach to childcare needed''. New approach my eye.

There is a reason why childcare is expensive, it's labour intensive, every five children must legally be looked after by at least one adult, and looking after children is hard work. So childcare workers probably aren't on the minimum wage. Therefore the fees for each child has to cover one fifth of the childminders salary and one fifth of the costs of running the creche, such as rent, food energy bills and so on. If the childminder earns about 400 a week , 20800 a year, each child costs at least 4000 a year to keep in a creche. The only way to make childcare more affordable is for the childminder to take a pay cut (or to try automating it: ) neither of which are likely). The other way to do it of course is to make somebody else pay for it, which is the senators dynamically amazing plan. Though making people pay for the consequences of other peoples decisions seems unfair to me. If you think childcare is too expensive, stay at home and look after your children yourself. If you need the job to pay the mortgage well presumably you're still coming out ahead after childcare costs (otherwise you're an idiot) so any childcare subsidy is basically a direct handout to the parents, from other taxpayers.

Of course i'm being ''deeply ideological'' (latest buzz-phrase), why, oh why won't I think of the children.