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Notes -
Again, no idea how the USA works, but there are various subsidised childcare schemes under the Irish government. Depending on your circumstances (e.g. are you lone parent, low income, etc.) and the age of the child, some parents will pay full fees and some parents will get a subsidised place (i.e. government funding for the kid while parent pays some percentage of the fee). Pre-school children are eligible for free care for 3 hours per day x 5 days per week x 38 weeks in the year. If the child stays longer, then the parents have to pay for the extra hours.
It's confusing to work out, so I'm glad I don't handle it. Parents have to register their child online and all the associated paperwork then gets processed, and the childcare service then submits how many hours a day and days a week each particular child attends. There are also ratios of how many staff to children per room, depending on age of children and how many in the room.
At the same time, the government is also recently increasing pay rates for childcare workers. So there's the juggling act of "how much do I pay the qualified staff plus running costs, versus what I can charge parents and get under funding" for operators. For the less scrupulous, that makes it a temptation to understaff the premises or hire less qualified/unqualified staff or cut corners while, let us say, maximising revenue streams. We don't have anything like the Minnesota scandal here (as yet), but that doesn't mean that some mini-scandal can't happen in future.
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