Failing creches to lose state funds

Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore has confirmed state funding will be cut from creches with failing childcare standards.

The Labour leader also insisted a Government-run internship programme would not be approved for three facilities exposed in an undercover investigation – where secretly-recorded footage showed staff manhandling children, shouting at them, snatching toys from their hands and toddlers strapped in highchairs for hours.

“The funding will be cut, there is no question about that,” Mr Gilmore said.

“The funding will be cut where the standards are not being maintained. This Government will not tolerate a situation where taxpayers’ money is being used to subsidise facilities that are not treating children properly.”

Meanwhile, Children’s Minister Frances Fitzgerald has called for an audit of inspections of the country’s creches and childcare centres.

She said reports need to be analysed to see if there is a pattern emerging in privately run, for-profit facilities.

The head of children and family services in the HSE, Gordon Jeyes, has been tasked with analysing reports.

“We need a compilation of the inspection reports so we can analyse what the patterns are in the for-profit sector,” she said.

“What are the patterns? What we have not had is a national analysis of that.”