A Tipperary childcare provider says they need clarity from the government if they’re to be able to reopen.
Darren Ryan of Clonmel Childcare says some guidance has been issued, but it’s not enough.
Playpods have been put foward as an option for younger children – the idea is that groups of children would be assigned to specific play pods where they would stay for the day.
However, Darren has told Tipp Today, they haven’t been told how many children they can have per pod:
“Typically, if I just give you an example an ECCE montessori room, it would have 22 children in it with 2 staff.
“If they set the pods at 6 children or 7 children, straight away that’s nearly halving the number of children that I can have in that room.
“So, ultimately, it is going to come down to a capacity issue and a space issue.”
It comes as proposals for the re-opening of creches across the country on June 29th will be discussed by the Cabinet today.
Darren says there is still a lot that they don’t know at the moment:
“It’s hard for us as a service – as it is for any other early years service – because I cannot pick up the phone at the moment and ring any parent on my books and say ‘are you returning on the 29th of June?’ because I do not know are they going to be on the list. You know, this essential workers list that they’re saying they’re going to provide to us. We still haven’t received that.”
