Childcare for parents returning to education may be restored

HOPE of restoring childcare places for parents returning to education has been raised after meetings between the Department of Education and the vocational education sector.

Hundreds of students, mostly women, who registered for Youthreach, Vocational Training Opportunities Service (VTOS) and Traveller training courses last month found childcare facilities and grants not available.

The cuts came after the Department of Education told the Vocational Education Committees (VECs) which runs the courses in July the same level of funding as last year was not being made available.

However, after the Irish Vocational Education Association (IVEA) which represents the VECs met with officials from the Department of Education, there appears to be hope of a solution.

IVEA general secretary Michael Moriarty said: “We are more hopeful than before that the present level of service can be sustained. The department seems more positively disposed to having an open mind about helping VECs maintain current childcare services to the end of the year.”

Last week’s talks came after more than a month of requests for discussions from IVEA, after shortfalls of up to 37% were notified to VECs during the summer holidays.

The department allocated just over €3 million for childcare to VECs in 2002, but gave an additional €1.7m from savings in other areas during the year. However, no such extra cash was made available on top of the funding of almost €3m for this year.

While Mr Moriarty was optimistic about the situation last night, he rejected claims by Education Minister Noel Dempsey that it was up to VECs to meet part of the costs of the scheme, which were never supposed to be completely department-funded.

“The places where such money would come from, our VTOS and Youthreach non-pay budgets, have hardly increased in 15 years, you can’t take flesh off a skeleton,” Mr Moriarty said. An in-depth review of the childcare grants’ scheme now appears likely to be carried out.