Minister deemed exposé creche as safe

The minister for children gave one of the creches at the centre of allegations of mistreatment a clean bill of health just a year earlier after parents reported another incident there to both the HSE and to the gardaí.

Last night it emerged there was an incident at Giraffe Belarmine in 2010 which was reported by parents as a child protection issue to a HSE duty social worker and also to gardaí.

According to a Prime Time report last night, over the next 18 months the HSE carried out several inspections. On the first, soon after the incident, the creche was found to be in breach of regulation five on child welfare and development and three other regulations. In Apr 2011, it was still in breach of regulation five on welfare and development as well as regulation nine on good behaviour management and nine other regulations. An inspection at the end of 2011 found it was in continuing breach of regulation five and seven other regulations and in May 2012 Giraffe was found to be in breach of one regulation.