Oversupply of childcare places available throughout country

The number of children in creches has fallen enormously during the recession with an oversupply of childcare places in every county — but Cork has suffered more.

According to creche managers, there has been an exodus from childcare centres due to rising unemployment meaning at least one person can stay at home with the children.

Many more of those working have offset pay cuts and increased tax rates by seeking childcare in the more informal, and often less costly, child-minding sector.

Latest figures show that at the end of 2011, there were nearly 2,000 places available at creches in Cork. This contrasts hugely with the Celtic Tiger years where waiting lists were commonplace. Up to 63% of the 1,958 creche spaces in Cork are in the private sector. There is still strong demand for community creche places from families who need childcare so they can retrain.

In Galway, there were 1,283 empty creche spaces, while in South Dublin the figure stood at 1,137; in Meath, there were another 1,122, Wexford 1,038, and Kerry 1,026.

The research by Pobal shows just over one third of creches were full.

According to Pobal, 30.6% of services have reported a reduced uptake in full, day places while 15.8% of services reported a reduced uptake of school-age places.

Another 13.9% of services have had to reduce the working hours of staff because of the falloff in child numbers.

As the debate rages in Ireland about whether for-profit creches can really be expected to put children’s best interests to the fore, Helen Penn from the Cass School of Education at the University of East London has pointed out that this country and Britain are in the minority when it comes an over-reliance on the private childcare sector.

“Proponents of a private, for-profit market in early child education argue that it is more flexible and less costly for the public purse but private services are socially stratified, parents pay higher fees, the private market is more volatile and the quality of provision is more variable and usually poorer,” she said.