Commitment to improve childcare ‘meaningless’

OPPOSITION parties have described the Government’s commitment to improve child safety in crèches as “meaningless waffle”.

Minister for Children Brendan Smith yesterday promised parents that crèche inspection reports will shortly be available on line. He was responding to a report in the Irish Examiner which revealed that 90% of crèches do not comply with childcare regulations. The findings were based on a trawl of almost 2,000 crèche reports. The majority were guilty of minor breaches.

Mr Smith said the Government was attaching “the utmost urgency” to plans to go live with the reports in 2008.

“The project is being worked on by the Health Service Executive and they know from us at central Government level that it is a project of utmost urgency.

“We want to assure parents that the best possible level of care is given to their children,” the minister said.

Mr Smith said the low rates of compliancy meant that “some aspects of the inspection process gave cause for concern”, but it did not represent total failure.

When asked why the new child care regulations (effective since September) did not include a mandatory requirement for staff in the childcare sector to have qualifications, Mr Smith said he was “working on it”.

“If we were to professionalise the service overnight, we would not have the trained people in place to man all the positions. We’re doing it incrementally.”

He said a working group had been established to oversee the implementation of the childcare regulations.

However Fine Gael social and family affairs spokeswoman Olwyn Enright described Mr Smith’s comments as “meaningless waffle”, empty of “any firm commitments on improving child safety”.

“The minister was given an opportunity to set out how he will tackle the shocking report of deficiencies in 90% of the nation’s crèches but instead spouted hollow buzzwords and empty rhetoric,” said Ms Enright.

She criticised Mr Smith’s rejection of a suggestion that a hotline be put in place for parents to make complaints about crèches.

She also criticised his failure to give a firm date for when inspection reports will be available online. The HSE has said it will be January.

The Irish Preschools Playgroup Association (IPPA) said it was “appalled by recent reports of serious non-compliance with the childcare regulations”.

“We urge parents to form a relationship with their crèche or playgroup,” said chief executive Irene Gunning.

“However we emphasise and applaud the majority of services who are working hard and deliver a good service on behalf of families and children.”

She also called on the Government to make more funding available at the next budget for the childcare sector. “The baby steps forward in recent years have been extremely helpful but we now need some giants steps. Our children deserve it and IPPA demands it,” she said.