Meeting on childcare crisis

PROBLEM Crèches turning babies away as they can’t meet staff ratios

A meeting will take place tomorrow night (Wednesday) in the Hotel Kilmore to find solutions to challenges faced in the childcare sector.

Facilities are struggling with rising costs, staff retention and recruitment, strict standards and what they say is inadequate government funding.

Services across the country are being forced to close their baby rooms in the face of low staff to child ratios despite growing demand.

For every three children aged 12 months and under, a minimum of one childcare professional is required as per the standard in early learning and care services in Ireland for full-day care or part-time provision.

One professional is required for every five children aged between one and two years; and every six children aged two years.

Every eight pre-school children, aged between three and six years, need one professional.

As a result of the low ratios for babies, childcare facilities across Cavan have been forced to close their baby rooms, turning away parents with their babies as it is just not profitable to cater for them.

By using the word profitable, Paula Donohoe of Clever Clogs childcare facility, says she doesn’t mean a villa in the Bahamas. She means providing a quality service to parents and their children; ensuring staff to child ratios are there, buying food to provide healthy meals, putting fresh paint on the walls and keeping the facility in toys and materials for her young people. Her state-of-the-art outdoor facility did not install itself.

In business for the past 16 years, Paula has reluctantly taken the “financial” decision to close her service to babies under one as of March 2024. As someone who is often first to hear of a new pregnancy, she has already had to turn expectant parents away.

“It is heartbreaking,” she said.

“The Minister from the Department [Minister Roderic O’Gorman] is coming out and saying that there is no evidence of closures,” Paula fumed.

Chair of the Federation of Early Childhood Providers, Elaine Dune, who is organising tonight’s meeting, regularly encounters people across the country in the same situation as Paula.

“She is talking to people on the ground and is getting this evidence.

“There is an easy answer to this. If the department dispute Elaine’s figures in every county in Ireland, there’s a County Childcare Committee.

“All he [Minister O’Gorman] has to do is task them to phone a service and ask them are they closing, are they planning on closing, have they had to close a room, or have they had to change a provision and he’ll have his data at his fingertips.

“I wonder why he’s not doing it.

“I don’t think they want to face the actual facts that are out there,” Paula claimed.

She outlined a day in the life of a childcare provider for “policy makers in suits” having asked them on several occasions to visit her facility to witness the childcare crisis with no result.

“I’ve never been taken up on that offer.”

As the pandemic spread across the world, a fee freeze implemented in 2021, which is still in place, hit all childcare facilities in Ireland meaning they could not increase their prices despite inflation. While Paula agrees that parents need support, she says the same is true of childcare providers who are receiving core funding, the amount of which has remained the same since 2022.

Her electricity bill in January 2021 was €400, in the same month in 2022 it was €770, this year it rose to €1,100.

“Now you have a fee freeze, you have a set funding model, and you have inflation costs.

“I’m stuck in a fee freeze, can you see where the problems lie?”

“Every business has raised their pricing structure to help remain sustainable.

“We are childcare providers, but we’re business people. We have to remain sustainable to stay open to provide childcare.

“Childcare is the cornerstone of a functioning economy. If childcare doesn’t function, it has a serious detrimental knock-on effect on the economy in general.”

Also challenging the sector are “draconian style” inspections, particularly on rooms for children who are under two years. Although necessary, Paula called for the authorities to work with childcare providers as opposed to working against them. She quoted an inspector’s words recently at a 100% compliant service where they were told “I tried my best to catch you out!”.

“A lot of people are gone out of under twos for that reason.

“Yes, we do need to protect it and I do know that TUSLA need to do their job and it’s right that they do their job, but we need to balance that, and it’s not balanced.

“The non-compliant can’t be a dead fly on the window.”

This ethos does not create a welcoming environment for recruiting new staff and retaining existing employees, especially with the government pushing for a “degree-led force” with inadequate pay, conditions and endless paperwork.

“What degree person is coming out to earn €15.50 an hour?

“They’re going straight out of the sector because the money isn’t there to support.”

Paula this year encouraged one of her staff members, who has been with her for the past 10 years, to take a job in the County Childcare Committee.

“It’s real money not monopoly money.”

She has also recently had to take one member of staff from a room to help manage the load of paperwork associated with the service.

“I got into childcare to fill out endless paperwork said no childcare professional ever.

“We have schemes that are so cumbersome, it is unbelievable paper wise. My role has become the administrator of government schemes.

“It’s nothing really to do with us and it has become a cost to our business.”

The Oireachtas committee for children has agreed to have a discussion on the “myriad of issues” with those in the childcare sector in Autumn.

“A lot of burnout is coming, you have a lot of good providers who have said ‘enough, I can’t deal with this anymore!’.

“The stress and the strain of the inspections, of the paperwork, of the endless documentation has actually broken people.

“We have capacity, we don’t have staff. We have to work with the Department, the Department has to work with us.

“This is a huge issue for the government and the government has to sit down and change policy.

“They have to engage with people who work in the sector. If they engage with us in a meaningful way, not pay lip service, I think they have the ability to change all of this.

“It has to change, I’m very positive,” she concluded.

Childcare service providers and politicians are being urged to attend tomorrow night's meeting in the Hotel Kilmore, Cavan, at 7pm.