Parents sue crèche over claims child was bitten

A FAMILY is suing a crèche owner for personal damages and negligence after their child was allegedly bitten by other children on seven separate occasions.

The case relates to a period three years ago when the child was one.

The Kildare family alleges the child suffered bites, including one to the face, on different occasions over a number of months and that adult supervision at the facility was inadequate.

It was also claimed yesterday that the crèche trauma was linked to the child suffering hair loss at a later date.

Legal documents that have been drawn up claim the crèche failed to comply with the Childcare Act of 1991 and associated regulations and, that at one stage, building work was allowed to continue on-site creating an unsafe and unsuitable environment for children.

Legal papers have been served on the crèche where the biting incidents are alleged to have taken place.

The father in the case yesterday said that after he had moved his children out of the crèche, he placed them in another crèche in the county.

However, when he visited that crèche he claimed he found more than a dozen young children unattended as the person nominally in charge was sunbathing in the back garden.

Meanwhile, crèche owners joined parents yesterday in calls for increased transparency in the childcare sector. One crèche owner said those in charge of facilities that fall below the required standard should be named and shamed and, where necessary, shut down.

Audrey Murray, who runs three crèche facilities in Co Kildare, said that a minority of sub-standard facilities were damaging the reputations of the majority of crèches operating to a high standard.

"They are pulling down the standard of facilities that are really good there are very many crèches out there that are brilliant," she said.

Ms Murray said that the HSE needed to crack down on crèches that are below standard and needed more powers to close them down where needed.

"These children are not being cared for and those crèches should be named and shamed and they should be shut down," she said.

A qualified child-minder and Montessori teacher also contacted the Irish Examiner to outline concerns she had with two childcare facilities in the southern region.

The woman, who did not wish to be named, recounted how she would be left alone to mind up to 18 children and how some children were regularly shouted at and subjected to physical force by staff.

She added that because she was on work experience at the crèches and therefore should not have been solely responsible for children under the existing legislation she did not feel able to voice her concerns.

"There was a lot of conflict between staff and management there was an awful breakdown in communication," she said.

"A lot of the time there would be no management on the premises during lunch hour, which was peak time.

"Management had no respect for the staff and the staff were frustrated with the way that they were being left to deal with more children than they should have been, and all for the minimum wage."