Parents whose children are cared for by a chain of creches in Dublin say they have been left to choose between paying substantially increased fees or giving up work after they were informed that the Little Rainbows group is to pull out of the Government’s core funding scheme.
About 600 children attend the five facilities across Donaghmede, Artane, Baldoyle and Santry run by the Little Rainbows group and parents say the fees they will be paying almost 50 per cent (or €80 per child, per week) more than they had expected from next month as a result of the changes.
In a letter to local public representatives they said they had been left “stuck” and “vulnerable” by the operator’s decision.
The company puts the increase at about €55 per week but the parents suggest this excludes a €33 increase in the subsidies they receive from national childcare scheme which is due to come into effect next month.
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Social Democrat councillor Aishling Silke, a former creche owner and lecturer in early education at Dublin City University, said the situation highlighted that the system was “completely broken”.
She pointed to the profits made by the two companies behind Little Rainbows, one called ‘Little Rainbows’, the other ‘Monica Campbell’, which made a combined €3.5 million in the last three years for which they have filed returns. During the three-year period they received Government Covid grants amounting to €2.4 million.
Speaking on RTÉ's Liveline programme on Monday, Alec Flood, a director of Monica Campbell Ltd, which runs two of the five creches, said the decision to pull out of core funding had not been prompted by financial considerations but rather because there was “just too much interference in the running of the business”.
Mr Flood said he believed anything up to 50 per cent of services could pull out of core funding – under which Government provides supports directly to operators to help with the cost of running their services this year.
The Department of Children has said the numbers signing up for the third year of the scheme is currently at much the same level as in its previous two years when about 95 per cent of operators participated.
“There are a lot of small providers out there who are only just breaking even, struggling to survive,” said Ms Silke. “But for large providers receiving large subsidies to hand back Government money because they don’t want to do the administration is not a way to do business. The voice of parents is not being heard here and it really highlights how the system is completely broken. We need to look at a public model.”
Little Rainbows has been contacted for comment.
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