Sir, – My wife and I are what the Taoiseach likes to describe as "people who get up early in the morning" and, as parents who both work (and need to work), the uncertainty around childcare being created by the withdrawal of an insurance provider is potentially a huge issue for us, as it is for many families (irishtimes.com, December 18th).
The Government needs to take ownership of this issue and should seriously consider creating a State-managed insurance fund to allow childcare operators continue to provide services into the new year.
Should they wonder where they might find the money, I would direct them towards the €16 million per annum currently funding the greyhound racing industry. Given that the Minister for State at the Department of Finance, Michael D’arcy, cites a cost of €60 per child as reasonable for insurance in the childcare sector, it would seem that re-routing this €16 million would more than cover the insurance needs of the entire sector.
As a resident of Stepaside in Dublin, I expect that Minister for Sport, Shane Ross, Minister for Culture, Josepha Madigan and Senator Neale Richmond will call to my door shortly to ask for my vote. When they do, I will remind them that the importance of a part-time Garda Station in our area pales into insignificance when compared to the day-to-day impact of uncertainty over childcare for two working parents with children of school-going age. – Yours, etc,
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RONAN PALLISER,
Stepaside, Dublin 18.
Sir, – The current crisis in childcare is multi-layered and utterly predictable. It stems from a limited appreciation of the central role of childcare: to care for and educate our youngest citizens.
These early childhood education and care settings may also provide space for parents to meet their employment, educational or training needs, and they may in some instances meet the additional needs of certain children, but this should be understood as a secondary function.
Rather than recognise these early learning environments as the educational and caring settings they are, policy has since the turn of the century seen them as services to parents and labour activation mechanisms.
The central reality is that early childhood educators hold the present and the future development of young children in their hands. As long as policy-makers persist in ignoring this fact, the system will continue to lurch from one crisis to the next.
It is past time to recognise early childhood education and care as a unique part of the education continuum, one that requires the same level of respect and support accorded to primary and secondary education. – Yours etc,
Prof NÓIRÍN HAYES,
School of Education,
Trinity College,
Dublin 2.