Fresh creche chaos as closures mount
Parents in limbo as 150 struggling facilities shut
THOUSANDS of parents of young children are facing grave uncertainty as hundreds of childcare facilities are being forced to close.
In the past two weeks alone, 150 creches have been forced to shut, with lobbyists saying the sector is in ‘chaos’.
Providers have said the childcare sector is facing severe operational challenges as a result of Covid-19 but that it had been creaking even before the pandemic.
Leading childcare lobby group the Federation of Early Childhood Providers (FECP) has described Government Covid supports for creche owners as ‘abysmal’.
The nationwide closures mean thousands of parents are in limbo regarding whether they can return to work if there is no childcare option available to them.
The FECP, which represents more than 1,600 childcare providers across the country, said that in the past fortnight ‘we have lost 150 providers. 55 have closed in the past week, and 13 in just the past 24 hours’.
The owner of one of those creches, Manor Montessori in Navan, Co. Meath, told the Irish Daily Mail she has been forced to shut because Government funding wasn’t enough to ensure her facility’s survival post-lockdown. Preschool owner Erica Conaty told the Mail: ‘We were all on our knees before all this happened.
‘The problem we had is the funding was so low that I’d been taking money out of my own pocket.’
And the chair of the FECP, Elaine Dunne, has warned that parents could be left without any childcare options, saying: ‘This is only going to escalate further as we are all running at a loss.’
She said the FECP has set up a hotline to help creche providers, such is the crisis facing the sector.
‘The Government needs to listen to us and understand the extreme hardship and pain many providers are currently enduring, not to mention parents trying to get back to work and no-one there to help them,’ Ms Dunne said.
‘A month ago, we predicted the impact which the abysmal Government supports would have... Today, we step up our call to urgently meet with the new administration and hear our plight. This is only going to escalate further as we are all running at a loss.’
The pleas for stronger State supports to bolster the sector come at a time when there is confusion – even within Government – over how many creches will reopen nationwide come September.
Minister for Children Roderic O’Gorman said yesterday that a major survey conducted by his department has indicated that 85% of creches are to reopen.
Mr O’Gorman’s clarification came after Tánaiste Leo Vardkar told the Dáil that just 60% of childcare facilities would reopen in September. A spokesperson for the Fine Gael leader later said that he’d been given ‘inaccurate’ information from the Department of Children on the matter.
Earlier Mr Varadkar had told the Dáil that the Government wanted to ensure the sector is ‘fully up and running’ by the autumn to meet demand, but cautioned that not all childcare services will return.
He was responding to Aontú TD Peadar Tóibín, who said he had information that 180 childcare
providers have closed due to the lack of assistance. He said: ‘As many as 10% of childcare providers have shut down already due to the lack of support. And the closures are accelerating.’
Mr Tóibín said seven childcare providers in Dublin alone have closed down in the past 24 hours,
He told TDs he has ‘shocking’ information from the sector showing it is in ‘chaos’.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Drivetime, Minister O’Gorman said: ‘The childcare sector is absolutely vital to the economy, and we know that margins are tight in that particular sector, and that’s why the Government is absolutely committed to assisting it as it reopens.’
‘We are all running at a loss’
The shutdowns ‘are accelerating’