Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

There will be a rolling closure of early childhood care and education, ECCE, and childcare services starting in November. Five hundred small businesses with close their services. It will affect approximately 20,000 parents and will be the first of many. It will go on for months and months. The reason for this is that some of these small businesses are simply being closed down by the core funding plan of the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. This core funding plan does not adequately cover the costs of these businesses to allow them to function. This will have a devastating effect on parents’ ability to access childcare. It is a car crash happening in slow motion and nothing is being done about it. We need to have debate on this issue.

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