A female staff member at a creche in Dublin was dismissed last month after allegedly physically mistreating a number of young children under her care.<\/p>\n
Garda\u00ed<\/a> and Tusla<\/a> are investigating an alleged incident at a creche operated by Once Upon a Time in South Dublin.<\/p>\n CCTV footage has been handed over to An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na. It is understood the children involved were aged between 12 and 15 months. <\/p>\n Parents whose children attend the creche in question expressed their shock. One mother described the situation as \u201chorrendous\u201d and said parents were worried about their children\u2019s safety. <\/p>\n Once Upon A Time operates several nursery and Montessori schools across Dublin.<\/p>\n Anne Marie McCormack, the company\u2019s codirector, told The Irish Times that the staff member in question was \u201cfully Garda-vetted\u201d and had verified written references.<\/p>\n \u201cThe matter came to light when a senior staff member, using our internal whistle-blowing process, raised concerns and requested a review of CCTV footage,\u201d Ms McCormack said via a statement.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile CCTV is not a regulatory requirement, we have invested in it across our services to strengthen child safeguarding. The review identified concerns which were escalated immediately to head office.\u201d<\/p>\n The statement noted that management were \u201con site within minutes\u201d and the staff member was fired \u201cwith immediate effect\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe also contacted the Garda Vetting Bureau and other relevant authorities, out of fear that this individual could walk into another childcare service or even work for a family directly.\u201d<\/p>\n The company offered counselling to staff who were affected by the incident, the statement noted.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile our policies, procedures, and training were already in place and fully compliant, we went further. Additional safeguarding measures were introduced immediately, including on-site retraining, evening workshops, specialist sessions, and strengthened staff supervision protocols.\u201d<\/p>\n The company\u2019s statement added that the \u201cwelfare of children is and always will be our absolute priority\u201d.<\/p>\n Tusla, the child and family agency, said it cannot comment on individual cases to protect the privacy of children and families. <\/p>\n However, it said all referrals it receives are screened and assessed in line with Children First guidelines on child protection, and that if it suspects a crime has been committed, it will formally notify An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na without delay.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere an incident or incidents involve a creche, Tusla\u2019s Early Years Inspectorate may further assess and inspect the service and\/or issue enforcement actions, as required,\u201d it said. <\/p>\n A spokesman said the Department of Children is \u201caware of the case but cannot comment as it remains under active investigation by both Tusla and An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na\u201d.<\/p>\n Garda\u00ed did not immediately respond to a request for comment. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A female staff member at a creche in Dublin was dismissed last month after allegedly physically mistreating a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9277,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9687,61,60,43,53],"class_list":{"0":"post-9276","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-childcare","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-tusla"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9276","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=9276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9276\/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=9276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}