Victoria White: Government must hold up its hands and admit childcare system broken

On November 29, Gillian Powell, of The Haven Montessori, Bandon,Co Cork, went on RTÉ’s Liveline radio show and told the nation we needed to get back to the drawing board with our childcare system.

Ms Powell called the situation — which seemed to follow the revelations in RTÉ’s undercover investigation into Dublin’s Hyde & Seek creche chain, Tusla’s urgent demand for creches to reregister, and spiralling insurance costs — “a good crisis point to say, ‘OK, I’m going to take a step back here and ask, What are we doing with the children of this country’?”