Protecting children - Deserving nothing but the best

THERE can be few greater leaps of faith than the one involved in entrusting a young, beloved and vulnerable child to the care of a hired stranger.

Yet that is just what tens of thousands of parents are obliged to do each and every working day.

Many young parents will insist that they are confident their child is looked after in a suitable and enriching environment. Sadly, this insistence is sometimes borne more in hope than in actuality. It is certain that the worry that a child is not being looked after as well as you might expect, adds greatly to the stress and deep unease of many contemporary lifestyles.

This unease is deepened by the lack of regulation and supervision in the childcare sector.

Today, the Irish Examiner reveals some of the dreadful situations faced by children in some crèches.

We detail how one boy was given Calpol to make him easier to manage; in another instance a nine-month-old baby was barred from a crèche because its mother complained about conditions.

In a worrying litany of abuse and poor standards, we reveal that broken limbs, filthy premises, bullying, slapping by staff and lax security feature in the complaints made to the Health Service Executive.

The concern is fuelled by the fact that new regulations don’t require any training or qualifications for childcare workers. However, a guide published with the regulations suggests that “at least 50% of childcare staff should have a qualification appropriate to the care and development of children”.

This guidance accepts that having up to 50% of staff in a childcare facility operating without qualifications is satisfactory. The deliberate absence of any requirement for a minimum qualification does not represent good practice if compared to most other OECD countries.

However, the huge cost implications of having a fully qualified staff in each and every crèche must be considered.

Another cause for concern is the area of staff-vetting. While the 2006 Childcare Regulations include a welcome requirement that all staff, students and volunteers in the service be appropriately vetted, legal experts believe the type of information available from the Garda Central Vetting Unit to a prospective service provider needs to be addressed. Legal sources say clarification is needed as to whether “soft information” can be used, that is, information which falls short of a criminal conviction but indicates a concern over an individual’s unsupervised access to children.

The new regulations also fall down in the area of registration. No requirement is included for service providers to seek registration on a register of approved pre-school services. Such a register could act as a guide to parents when selecting a pre-school for their child.

The need for extensive and approved crèche facilities is a relatively recent one but that does not mean we should accept substandard facilities. This is another area where users must know that the state has done everything possible to ensure that our childcare services, private or public, are the best that they can be.

Whether we can rely on the Government that so spectacularly botched something as simple as driving licence legislation to do this remains to be seen.