Charlie O'Connor (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the opportunity to raise this issue along with my fellow Tallaght-based colleague, Deputy Crowe. I thank the Ceann Comhairle for allowing us to raise this important issue on a day when he clearly had many items on his desk. I acknowledge the presence of the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Ahern, and I hope he has answers for us.

As Deputy Crowe has outlined, this crèche has been operating for 16 years and has 24 children currently. Many devastated parents have contacted us in the past week since Thursday's edition of The Echo broke the story. With other colleagues I was in St. Muirin's House yesterday — it was not the first time I visited the facility — and I sat down with the children who were drawing, painting and having a good time in a very safe environment. It is easy to understand how successful the crèche has been. I have had a long-term contact with that project. When I was first elected to the council for Tallaght-Central in 1999, St. Muirin's featured as an issue being brought to our attention. As Deputy Crowe said there was a campaign for a new facility and I am glad that we, as members of the council, were present to see it to fruition. I hope that next year we will see the new facility built and opened.

Meanwhile today's crisis is the crèche. The committee and workers met executives of FÁS last night. Despite that meeting and certain statements from FÁS, the workers' situation remains unclear. We want absolute clarification and I hope FÁS has fully briefed the Minister of State. We need to be able to go back to the workers and advise them how safe their jobs are and confirm absolutely that the crèche will continue to operate. It is a vital service locally. It is Government policy based on social inclusion criteria to help people get back to the workplace. I do not want to make a political point. There are jobs and, thank God, in recent years Tallaght has benefited from employment opportunities. As my colleague has said while we want people to take work we cannot provide crèche places. In this case what appears to be a very happy and safe crèche is being jeopardised because of what appears to be FÁS red tape. If the Minister of State wants to correct me on that presumption, I will stand corrected.

I received a large number of calls on this important issue over the weekend. I went to the crèche yesterday and saw the position for myself. I spoke to people who gave me testimonials. One lady said she has tremendous experience from working in the FÁS finance project and she does not want to leave. Another trainee told me she had asked if she could do a training course and her supervisor told her no money was available to her and that she should write to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul to ask for the money. I did not hear that FÁS had problems in that regard and did not hear FÁS being challenged in that regard.

I look forward to the statement of the Minister of State. I will certainly make contact with the Minister in the next few days. I hope that by the time we meet the parents again next Monday we can give them an absolute guarantee that this project is safe, that the children will have their crèche places and everything will be normal.

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