Ms Anne Clarke:

Exactly. The fact is that the owner has been there for 18 years and it has been acceptable. She put in for the building blocks funding with the report saying that the inspectors wanted the doors replaced this year, and was refused. Very few people got the building blocks grant.

The Senator also asked about the AIM. It is a big thing not only with our SNAs. Our graduate staff are coming into the sector, getting a couple of years - or even less - of experience and then leaving, so we are not gaining from it. The idea that we will have a graduate-led sector by 2028 is not functional. The money is not there to pay the graduates or even to pay our staff to have a graduate-led sector by 2028. We are losing them into primary schools, CCCs and Tusla. They are going everywhere. This is how sad it is. We have a provider in Cavan who has a room where she could take nine babies. Every single day in Cavan we are getting phone calls from parents who are desperately looking and crying out for places for children up to the age of two. This woman has a room that could take nine babies.

She has three babies and one staff member. She has been advertising since last May and cannot get appropriate staff, or any staff. There are nine baby places in thetown of Cavan. Parents are crying out for them and we cannot get staff to fill them. Until we sort out the problem of the staff, we are going nowhere. We are going into a deep, dark hole that, in fairness to the sector, the Department and everyone else, we had pulled ourselves out of. We have brought ourselves somewhere and we are just going back into this hole and it is going to take longer to get out of it until something is done critically and very soon.