Creche workers paid in spite of closures

The Department of Education is continuing to pay wages to staff at some VEC creches despite the fact the facilities have been closed for some time.

In the three years since 2011, creches have closed in 10 counties due to the impact of a scheme introduced a year earlier to improve childcare support for those taking up further education programmes.

This year, the Department of Education will spend €1.4m on the programme, including covering the wages of creche workers who have not found work elsewhere in the new Education and Training Boards.

“Staff affected by these closures are being redeployed or have received redundancy,” said a department spokesperson. “The department continues to meet the cost of staff salaries in a small number of Education and Training Boards, where creches closed, due to the lack of redeployment opportunities currently available,” it said.

In a brief prepared ahead of the Public Accounts Committee meeting in May, the department said that, since late 2011, VEC-run childcare facilities had been closed down in city and county Dublin, Carlow, Clare, Cork, Kildare, Meath, Galway, Roscommon, Dun Laoghaire, Kildare, and Wicklow.

Three more creches are to be closed in Co Wicklow this year.

In Cork, the Education and Training Boards has already said it is looking for a private sector operator to take over the running of a €1m creche built in Ballyellis, Mallow.

A loan applied for to build the creche and a linked-lease arrangement have been the subject of an investigation by the comptroller and auditor general.

The department said €2m was spent last year on the scheme to support creches in five Education and Training Boards areas and, this year, €1.4m will go to the units that are still open in four remaining areas.