David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House.

I spoke briefly to him about this privately a number of days ago and gave him notice that I might raise this issue because it has been raised with me. This issue is the serious situation in the Manor Childcare Centre in Waterford city, where 16 staff members were served with redundancy notice by the board. I have met both the board and all members of staff in the last week. Facilitated discussions are ongoing between the board and the staff and I do not want to get into those issues because I wish both parties well in trying to resolve them.

As a former member of a voluntary board of a community development project - those boards have now been dissolved - I have sympathy with the board in the sense that it can only work with the money it has. It can only work with whatever income streams it gets to manage a project, in this case the child care centre. The board is very clear in this instance that the money is not there to meet the demand. In other words, the income is not enough to meet the expenditure. That includes the staffing levels and also running the centre itself. Much of this comes down to how we fund community child care places. This has been a longstanding issue for people who work in this sector and for parents who send their children to these community child care centres. There is a view that the funding is not sustainable and it is very complex and convoluted. There is also a sense that what is happening in this child care centre in Waterford is happening in many child care centres across the State and that there are serious challenges which must be met.

I know from someone who lived in that area for many years that this is a first-class centre, which provides a first-class service. Over 100 children use it. It is in an area which is deemed to be marginalised and disadvantaged. It provides a vital service for people who are getting back into employment, many of them part-time workers, and it is an enormous benefit. The centre itself is in a great building that cost €1.5 million. This centre may close - that is how stark the reality is - and if it does, leaving aside the impact it has on the staff and the children, what are we to do with the centre and the building the State invested so much money in? That is how critical this issue is.

There are three issues. The first is the national funding that is provided to these centres and this centre specifically. The board has been in contact with the Minister's office and with Pobal, seeking extra funding. Will extra funding be made available to keep the centre open? Is there any possibility of that happening? Second, is the Minister aware of how serious the issue is? Is he aware how many children attend the crèche and how many families depend on it? Finally, has he any plans generally to change the funding to community crèches? Is he aware that this is not just an issue in Waterford, but that there are issues in relation to how the crèches are funded generally, on a national scale, and not just in relation to Waterford? The Minister might be kind enough to respond to these questions.