Working parents and those who want to return to the workforce in Mountmellick, Co Laois, are celebrating the inauguration of a €1.4 million project to provide professional childcare for up to 70 children.
It is hoped the project will go to tender in February and that work will start in the summer.
The scheme is a partnership between the Midland Health Board and the successful Mountmellick Development Association (MDA), set up to rejuvenate the town following devastating job losses and a subsequent slump in the 1980s.
Staff at St Vincent's Hospital, Mountmellick, found they had problems accessing professional childcare in the area, a problem also recognised by the MDA, which provides training for people trying to return to work.
A childcare proposal by the MDA some years ago was granted funding of €95,230 but this never worked out.
The funding, however, provided a building block for a bigger project and this latest partnership with the hospital and health board, according to Mr Jim O'Brien, manager of MDA.
The €1.4 million has been granted under the Department of Justice's Equal Opportunities Childcare Programme 2202-2006.
A site behind the MDA's centre has been set aside for the creche, which will employ 12 professional childcare workers and an administrator. A childcare training centre will be included.
Among those who welcomed the announcement this week was Ms Margaret Larkin, who works at the hospital. She has a four-year-old boy, Aidan, and is expecting another child in March.
When she had Aidan, she found it "impossible" to get someone to look after him. "It was all new to me. There was a lady with a creche and she closed down and started minding him from her home. But then she sold up and moved.
"It left me in an awful position - who do you get to look after your baby? I didn't know anyone in town, and with people minding babies in their own homes you don't know what their training is or what happens when you close the door. It's really difficult." In addition, parents were forced to take time off work if a child was sick. She now has a "great lady" looking after Aidan.
Margaret became involved in the committee which originally worked on the childcare project to examine options for professional facilities in Mountmellick.
Transporting children to and from childminders every day is another issue which will, it's hoped, be resolved by the presence of a new professional facility within a stone's throw of both the hospital and the MDA centre.
"It's been a long haul with childminders," Margaret Larkin says. While she doesn't know what the cost of the childcare will be, she expects it will be somewhat less than in Dublin.
Ms Kate Brickley, regional hospital co-ordinator with the Midland Health Board, said health board staff lent their expertise to the project but that the partnership of the MDA was vital.
The building will also provide a training facility to bring more professional childcare workers on stream.
This aspect of the project may generate some revenue to help finance the childcare itself. Places will be allocated to staff in the hospital and to local people who are working or who want to pursue training or education.