John McGahon (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Last week, I attended a meeting with my former colleague on Louth County Council, Councillor Colm Markey, about the closure of Scallywags crèche in Togher, County Louth. I will give a brief outline of the background. The Togher community project group has operated a community employment scheme and continues to run a community crèche in a rural part of County Louth. They took over the local parochial hall on a long-term lease to open and operate the crèche and it has been running as a not-for-profit company for the past 20 years, providing an important service in the area. On Monday, 6 July the manager advised all staff by text message that it was closing the next day and that the company had ceased to trade. The parents were advised on Tuesday, 7 July, also by a three-line text message, that the crèche was closing. That was it - game over. This left approximately 40 parents in the local community with no crèche and no more after-school childcare or anything like that. The most galling aspect about this is that the crèche was so successful. Accounts for the year 2017-18 showed retained earnings of €53,000 and cash reserves of €450,000. The business, therefore, was hugely viable.On the governance, and this gets on to the point I want to make, there is currently a board of four people who run this company. Three of the four people are from one family. Indeed, a number of board members have been removed and replaced by family members, which is completely allowed under the Companies Act 2014. However, there was no effort whatsoever to try to seek advice to maintain this service. There are so many viability plans and so many options with Covid restart schemes that could help. To conclude, it is very odd and very disturbing. It is very important that we invite the Minister into this House for a debate about the transparency and the regulations surrounding the childcare sector.