The State’s decision to require parents to have a public services card to qualify for new national childcare payments is “illegal” and “highly discriminatory”, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties has warned.
Lone parents with schoolgoing children who are better-off on their existing schemes will be allowed remain on these indefinitely, the department has emphasised. “If you don’t want to get [a public services card], there is an option to apply by post,” a department official said on Tuesday, though the postal option will not be ready until early 2020, possibly the end of January.“The reason for that is the IT system actually requires a whole other layer of development to support postal-based applications. What we are doing is so big and so innovative that we have to launch it on a phased basis.
Seventy thousand children currently served by existing childcare schemes can continue and move on to the national childcare scheme when the paper-based postal application becomes available.
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