Responding to the Government’s plans to acquire childcare facilities, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions said:
“Scarce childcare places, unaffordable fees and high staff turnover are the direct result of the Government’s obsession with keeping business owners sweet, and their new so-called State-led childcare is more of the same.
“The groundswell of support for a genuine public childcare model exists because parents want a guarantee of a quality service at an affordable price and an end to the annual will-they-won’t-they threats of their daycare centre withdrawing from State schemes.
“Unfortunately, the Government’s proposed initiative to tackle long waiting lists continues to rely on private service providers to deliver what should be a basic entitlement.
“Community childcare services make up just one-quarter of all current providers, with only 140 being large services (i.e. catering for 100 or more children) 31 of which are in rural locations. Few, if any, of these are likely to be in a position to bid for public procurement contracts to deliver 100 more places in a State-owned facility. The bulk of large childcare service providers are for-profit businesses. Childcare chains, often carrying significant debt, are vulnerable to the whims of the market and investors. This is the kind of uncertainty and insecurity that the Government should be looking to remove from the childcare system.
“The Government has said that the successful bidders will be required to deliver services on a not-for-profit basis. While taking the profit motive out of childcare is long overdue, how much more will keeping the middle man cost the public purse? Will providers be able to expense directors’ pay and pension contributions or their debt repayments?
“Until Government moves off its dependency on private childcare services, the care of our youngest citizens, working families, and staff will remain trapped in a cycle of market failure.”
