Warning of urgent ‘childcare crisis’ in county
A claim that there is a childcare crisis in Westmeath has been made at county council level by Cllr Denis Leonard.
The Labour man revealed at last week’s meeting of the council that just the previous weekend, a crèche in Kinnegad had closed.
“And there’s literally no place to go: some of them are already driving 10 to 15 miles with children in the morning; people have to give up work now because there’s no childcare available,” he said.
Cllr Leonard asked that the council write to the Department of Children seeking more support for community childcare places in Westmeath.
“It’s terrible to see people having to give up work,” he said, stating that while there is much talk about housing and transport and infrastructure, there tends not to be enough on childcare.
He suggested that consideration be given to what more could be done to promote more childcare and also suggested the council ensure that in every planning application for new estates, a childcare facility is provided for.
“If we don’t, we could have four or five more thousand people in Mullingar over the next five years and a huge lack of childcare places because many of them have to travel for work. We don’t have the employment in the county to provide the employment we need, so people have to travel and that [necessitates] child care after school programmes as well, so I think we need more support for community childcare and more incentives.”
Support came from Cllr Vinny McCormack, who said he is chairperson of a community childcare facility. He remarked that while in recent years, there has been “great support” in terms of increasing the wages for people who work in the childcare sector and great support for reducing the cost to parents, there had been no support in assisting the facilities.
“So what’s happening is everyone else is getting supported but the childcare facilities are taking in less and less money the whole time and struggling then to survive so that’s where the hole is in the system,” he said.