Councillor Daniel Ennis hits out as Dublin childcare costs four times more than Germany
Dublin parents are paying four times more for childcare than their German counterparts.
While the average monthly cost in Ireland sits around €850 per child, many other European countries see costs capped or heavily subsidised. In Germany, costs are usually below €200 per month and in places like Berlin and Hamburg childcare is free for up to five hours per day from birth up until they start school, with just a small fee paid for food.
This is in stark contrast to Dublin , where Social Democrats Councillor Daniel Ennis highlights parents are often paying the equivalent of a “second mortgage” just for childcare. Cllr Ennis spoke to Dublin Live about this issue and said it’s one of the most consistent topics coming up as he speaks to constituents while canvassing for the upcoming Dublin Central by-election.
As a father of two living in the north inner city, Cllr Ennis said he knows first-hand the burden being placed on families to meet childcare costs and said he counts himself as one of the lucky ones, as many aren’t even able to secure places and are left languishing on waiting lists. He pointed out that, ahead of the General Election in 2024, then-Taoiseach Simon Harris promised to publish a roadmap for cutting the cost of childcare to €200 per month within the first 100 days of this government.
This never happened and now Taoiseach Micheál Martin says this reduction of childcare fees to €200 is a government term commitment and that the public will see a significant increase in childcare places in the coming years. Cllr Ennis has slammed this moving goal post as a “broken promise” that the people of Dublin urgently want to see addressed.
“I take everything the government says with a pinch of salt, but I was really excited about that promise. To see that delivered would not only benefit me but so many parents and children would benefit from it,” he said.
Cllr Ennis believes other countries have treated childcare as essential infrastructure, while in Ireland, it’s a “private burden” placed on parents. While wealthier families may be able to bear the brunt of extortionate costs, he said working class families are left struggling and their children are at a disadvantage from the day they are born as a result.
“Other countries have made the decision that this is critical infrastructure. Its investment across the board and giving everyone equal opportunities for childcare,” he said.
“In Ireland, our government has consistently treated it as an afterthought. At some point you have to stop calling it a failure and start calling it a choice. It’s a decision. It’s not by mistake. It’s by design.”
With Dubliners already dealing with a housing and cost of living crisis , Cllr Ennis said he hears from constituents, time and again, that people are struggling and that this is an issue that "disproportionately affects women.” “Everyone should have equal opportunities, but for lone parents and low-income families it’s just yet another area where you need to have money to even get in,” he said.
There’s an element of guilt that has kept this issue quiet when compared to other topics like rising rents or the ongoing fuel crisis according to Cllr Ennis. He said there’s often a perception that parents should just “get on with it” and not complain about the costs associated with having a child.
“You end up paying it and you end up not shouting about it because why would I complain about paying for something for my children? So it's that guilt that you get as well and that's probably why we haven't heard about it as much as we probably should have,” he said.
The Joint Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth has called on the government to implement additional investment in early years and school age care to reach €4 billion, or approximately 1% of GDP. In Budget 2026 €125 million was added, bringing the overall allocation to €1.48 billion.
Cllr Ennis slammed these figures as not even reaching half of what is needed and said the country is lagging far behind much of the rest of Europe when it comes to childcare. Yet, he believes the Social Democrats have the solution for the childcare crisis through their proposed public model Páistecare.
This advocates for a state-led system to reduce costs for parents, improve staff pay, and improve sector capacity that Cllr Ennis describes as a fully costed system modelled after Sláintecare. Aimed at significantly reducing costs, he said Páistecare would shift things from private, for-profit providers to a publicly funded model.
The most important thing to achieve this is a cross-party support, which Cllr Ennis believes should be possible for an issue as universal and essential as childcare. But he worries that central government’s overreliance on the private market is a major challenge.
“We've seen our public transport system being privatised. We look at the over-reliance of the private market in terms of housing. Childcare is just another example of that,” he said.
However, Cllr Ennis said this could be overcome through the formation of a cross-party committee that lays out a short, medium and long-term policy plan for Páistecare. If political parties were able to come together and find unity to reform the health service with Sláintecare, he argues they should be able to find common ground for Ireland’s children.
An affordable childcare model would allow those who wish to return to the workforce to also do so, Cllr Ennis said, stating that so many parents forgo their careers because the costs of childcare are simply too great to justify going back to work. “When bills are up around €1000, €1200, or €1500, there's one parent that's going to say, right, I'm staying at home because we can't afford to pay that,” he said.
Ultimately, Cllr Ennis believes this is an issue about listening to the concerns of the public and providing a childcare system that works not just for the country’s wealthiest families, but for everybody. He said a basic need for childcare is putting “strain and stress on young families” and that a shift is needed as “families across Dublin Central can’t afford more years of broken promises and a broken childcare system.”
This content is funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme