Government accused of being totally blind to the issues facing childcare sector

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A Tipperary childcare provider says Minister O’Gorman is not listening to Creche owners.

Crona Byrne, who runs The Owl and the Pussycat in Ballina, says the Government is totally blind to the issues facing the sector.

She says that while it is a positive that they are aiming to support parents more through targeted measures they have failed to extend that to providers who are struggling with increased running costs and staff retention.

Speaking to Tipp Today Crona said that some of the country’s best facilities will be forced to close if there isn’t action.

“Everything is for the parents and we can understand that and the parents do need support but also so do the creches and the creche owners and unfortunately the ECC only services are suffering greatly due to the Minister and his actions and he doesn’t like listening unfortunately to what is being told to him. Unfortunately there’s an awful lot of them are going to close and it’s a very sad day that this country they are crying out for childcare and yet there are creches and ECC services closing.”

Crona also spoke about the inspection system within the sector creates unnecessary stress.

The manner inspections are carried out is also a strain with the rules in place open to interpretation meaning that different inspectors can have differing opinions on how you are running your facility and if it meets the requirements.

Crona says that the freezing of fees and the additional paperwork on top of these inspections are causing people to pull out of the industry due to stress.

“The rules are open to interpretation. One inspector would interpret something different to another inspector. One inspector could come in and say you are not doing this and you explain your reasoning but they will write you up in a manner that it sounds like you are doing something seriously wrong. None of us are out to do anything wrong we are out to present the best care for these children. We are the home from home experience, we are the people who are teaching them educating them ready to move on up to school and along the way this is being forgotten.”