Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

To follow on from that, we can be innovative. One of the great services that community crèches provide is the baby room, but it is the largest cost in the community sector. The baby room ratio is 3:1. For every three babies, there is one worker. If six babies are in the room, perhaps a community employment worker could be brought in to facilitate the service. Could community employment workers in kitchens or receptions help out during tea breaks or lunch breaks? Working with Tusla and the Department, is there any capacity to be innovative in how we support these services? Even if there is no budget, there must be ways to handle the ratio. The 3:1 would have to stay, but we should use people during tea breaks and lunch breaks or when staff are out sick or on annual leave. There should be a tolerance level in the ratio of staff in respect of community employment workers.

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