Greater transparency is needed from Tusla about its registration of creches and the individual conditions laid on them in order to continue operating.
Galway East TD Anne Rabbitte, Fianna Fáil spokesperson for children’s affairs, said that 10 percent of creches have specific conditions applied to their registration by Tusla connected to past issues.
Figures obtained by Anne Rabbitte show that 595 early years services are registered with specific compliance conditions, of which 274 are located outside of Dublin.
“These figures show that there are crèches that have been told by Tusla that there were certain shortcomings found during previous inspections that the crèche hasn’t remedied but Tusla allows them to continue operating under the assumption they will be fixed”.
“These requirements are issues of noncompliance relating to overcrowding, staff ratios, Garda vetting, fire safety, incorrect sleeping arrangements, and staff qualifications, among others.”
“Tusla refuses to say where these crèches are, and crèches are not obliged to display their registration, so parents have to actively seek out the information and see if their crèche is affected.”
“What’s important here is transparency. Parents are paying a lot of money for childcare and need to be able to make informed decisions about what’s best for their child,” concluded Deputy Rabbitte.
