Closures of early childhood education and care centres outnumbered those opening by four to one in the latest batch of figures from Tusla.
The Child and Family Agency recorded 50 closures of preschools and 12 new registrations over April to July this year, among a total of more than 4,000 early learning and care (ELC) services across the country.
Scallywags Childcare in Virgina, Co Cavan would need to open two more “baby” rooms to clear its waiting list for children aged six months to two years, says owner Catherine Keenan, but there is no space to expand. It can cater for 56 children in total and most are full-day care. Another creche in the area has closed its room for the younger-age cohort because it was not economically viable and she believes there is a widespread shortage of places for the under-twos.
It is a different story for the ECCE, for which there seems to be ample capacity for 2023/24. However, parents “panicked” by talk of shortages in early childhood services have reportedly been putting their children’s names down for several different centres, just in case.
“We have been telling parents for the last six months that we are full and have no places for September,” says Ms Keenan, who operates two other centres in Navan, Co Meath. Yet within the past fortnight they, and other services, have experienced an unprecedented volume of cancellations in children taking ECCE places.
[ About one-third of children in Ireland attend childcare, census findsOpens in new window ]
Parents have made their choices at the last minute, despite previous confirmations and centres having registered the children for the scheme. The loss of modest deposits does not seem to worry parents, she says. She has even been told two children with additional needs, for whom a specialist worker was lined up under the access and inclusion model, are no longer starting. Services will be paying staff wages while their ECCE rooms are operating at a loss unless they can fill the places.
Providers’ “big gripe” with the Government over ECCE, she explains, is that it is only funded for 38 weeks yet centres must pay staff for 42 weeks “because everybody is entitled to four weeks’ holidays”.
Ms Keenan has been in the business 20 years and says “this is the hardest year ever to try to find staff”. Low pay scales reflect what the early year services get from the Government “but they need to be more in line with schoolteachers’ pay. I am hearing a lot of places are having to close rooms because they don’t have the staff.”
Going by the phone calls she gets and the number of new housing estates being built, Ms Keenan is in no doubt that more early years services are needed in the Meath/Cavan region. The problem is the new core units coming on the market are just too expensive, “unless you are a corporate chain”, she says.
Meanwhile, Evelyn Reilly of kidz@play in Maynooth, Co Kildare, says they have seen a significant increase in parents looking for full-day or part-time care added on to the ECCE programme.
She attributes this to the higher subsidies for parents, as well being in a commuter area where many families have both parents working.
While kidz@play has expanded its full-day-care spaces in response, it has had to close its ECCE and after-school service in Kilcock due to losing its premises within a primary school where pupil numbers had increased. Ms Reilly says being unable to locate an alternative, affordable space has reduced the services it can offer.
Although kidz@play never catered for babies and toddlers, it is currently receiving many queries for this age care, she adds.
