Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

I hope the Minister of State has more positive news on this issue than on the previous matter.

A long-standing, successful community child care crèche has operated at the Mountview Family Resource Centre, Whitechapel, Blanchardstown, Dublin 15. The Government has said repeatedly child care is a priority and providing child care opportunities for low income families and parents is a critical part of the programme for Government. Nonetheless, this crèche, which has provided a valuable service for the past ten years, will close its doors at the end of June. We have listened to endless lectures from the Government about how child care facilities, particularly for low income or unemployed parents, are absolutely critical to allowing them to continue at work or to return to education and training.

I fear the threatened closure of this crèche will be the first of many, as funding cuts bite and confusion reigns about Government policy in this area. I am informed by the management committee that the changes put in place by the Government last July in funding and staffing such crèches has made the Mountview crèche financially unviable. I am advised by the committee that the changes in the funding structure and the new subvention scheme have greatly reduced the income of the crèche and, despite strenuous efforts, the committee has been unable to secure future funding for the crèche. It has exhausted every available avenue in its efforts to secure the future of the crèche, including engaging with the enterprise officer of the Blanchardstown area partnership, drawing up a new business plan, which resulted in a substantial increase in fees to endeavour to meet crèche costs, reducing unnecessary expenses for food from the account, reducing staff numbers by one in 2008 and exploring collaborations with other organisations to save the crèche.

I call on the Minister of State, who has specific responsibility for this area, to bring the parties together to see if a rescue of this important facility can be effected. In particular, the Minister for Finance announced the early childhood subsidy would be replaced by a new scheme providing for a new preschool year in early childhood care and education. If the details could be made available, perhaps the initiative could help to save the crèche or some of its activities and make the balance of its other activities viable. The Minister of State must bring all the parties involved in such community crèches, the county child care committees, the partnerships and sponsors and funders of such community facilities together, otherwise the closure of the Mountview centre will become the first of many.

It is ironic that the letter to parents advising the closure of the facility is on notepaper headed, "National Development Plan - Your Plan, Your Future". All the funding was apparently provided for but now it is not. Lone parents and members of low income families who have taken up some work, in particular, will experience a double whammy. Their early childhood subsidy is being withdrawn by the Minister for Finance while, at the same time, crèche fees are increasing. The early start initiative, which the Labour Party introduced in Government in 1994, has never been expanded. It is the only full State scheme providing early childhood education. Billions of euro have been poured into various initiatives under the national development plans and into the decentralisation programme, yet money is being withdrawn from child care services.

I would like a serious response because while this crèche is important to the community in Mountview and the surrounding area, it will be the first of many closures the Government and the Minister of State's Department will initiate.

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