{"id":403055,"date":"2026-04-17T07:54:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T07:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/403055\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T07:54:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T07:54:07","slug":"massive-numbers-of-creches-across-dublin-lying-unused-and-unusable-committee-hears-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/403055\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Massive numbers\u2019 of creches across Dublin lying unused and unusable, committee hears \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are \u201cmassive numbers\u201d of creches across Dublin<\/a> built in compliance with planning conditions for new homes, which are lying unused and unusable, childcare<\/a> providers have told TDs and Senators.<\/p>\n

Stuart Buchanan, head of advocacy and impact at the YMCA<\/a> \u2013 which has been providing creches since 1988 \u2013 said across Dublin \u201cyou will have what is a reasonably small creche facility put in place to meet the bare bones of a planning requirement\u201d. <\/p>\n

But he told the Oireachtas<\/a> Committee on Children and Equality \u201ca number of those, a massive number of those, are sitting empty because simply, there is not the scale for those to be viable\u201d.<\/p>\n

So, \u201cwhether that is a commercial operator or a community operator\u201d, if there was not the scale available, or if the creche was not run as part of a larger community centre, it would not be a viable business, he said. <\/p>\n

Theresa Murphy, a director of Spraoi and Sonas Early Learning Centres, said the problem was visible beyond Dublin.<\/p>\n

About 213,000 children are enrolled in early learning and childcare services across the State \u2013 850 of them cared for by Spraoi and Sonas she said. <\/p>\n

Murphy said the problem of appropriate buildings was also visible in Galway, where she said \u201ca creche is required for every development over 70 units\u201d.<\/p>\n

She instanced the provision of a creche space in a housing development in Galway city, which was \u201c1,650sq ft\u201d (153 sq m).<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not a sustainable size for a service. It won\u2019t attract a provider to go in there and operate it, but the developer has ticked the box in terms of doing what they had to do to meet the planning requirements,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Childcare companies contend Labour Court process did not comply with regulationsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Karen Clince, chief executive of Tigers Childcare, said her business consults with developers, including the IDA, on the provision of childcare units \u201cand actually, when you see the plans of what they\u2019re building, they\u2019re never fit for purpose\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo you really do have to say to them, \u2018Oh no, you can\u2019t have that \u2013 toilets don\u2019t make sense outside of a room. Or, you know, there needs to be a lobby here.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

She said the ratio of children to space was also an issue with many plans. \u201cThey might have 26 children in an early childhood centre room when you can only have 22.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clinch told committee chair Keira Keogh: \u201cThere is no point unless you\u2019re in a very rural community to put in a two-classroom space. Service needs to have at least four classrooms really, to be able to operate and make it viable.\u201d<\/p>\n

The committee also heard of severe staff shortages in the sector, made more complex by lengthy Garda vetting times, which can be up to 40 working days. <\/p>\n

Maria Watters, financial administrator of Lios na n\u00d3g Playgroup in Co Louth, said: \u201cThere is a big recruitment crisis. We have struggled each year to recruit staff. On our last recruitment drive we received 20 CVs; 19 of the candidates did not live in Ireland and they were ineligible to work in Ireland; they were also unqualified.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watters said retention and motivation of staff was \u201cequally as big an issue for us\u201d. She said the issues facing early years teachers were poor pay rates; term-time contracts which lead to financial worries and inability to get mortgages; long delays in receiving social welfare payments in the summer; and difficulties with challenging behaviour from children. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are \u201cmassive numbers\u201d of creches across Dublin built in compliance with planning conditions for new homes, which…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9277,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,9687,615,61,60,12636,2549,129458],"class_list":{"0":"post-403055","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-childcare","10":"tag-dublin","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-oireachtas","14":"tag-planning-permission","15":"tag-ymca"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}