Policy to prevent closures

In recent weeks there has been a renewed focus on the issue of closures due to media reports highlighting the number of closures since 2019. However, this is an issue to which Early Childhood Ireland has been proposing solutions for the last few years which we want to see adopted as a matter of urgency.

Early Years and School Age Care needs to be recognised by policy makers as an essential public good. If a setting closes, it can have a detrimental impact on children, families and staff. Depending on the circumstances, operators can face enormous pressure and stress, and the impact on communities is unknown. Children’s routines are upended, and they are separated from their educators and their friends. Families are left scrambling to find alternative places, leaving parents worried. Educators face potential layoffs.

For more than two years, Early Childhood Ireland has been proposing that the Department of Children and other stakeholders take a much more ‘hands-on’ approach to potential and confirmed closures.

In November 2023, we had a very productive engagement with the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration & Youth on this very matter. While before the Committee’s hearing on ‘Challenges facing the Childcare Sector’, we discussed in detail our Policy Proposal on Closures. During this meeting, we outlined how we believe a Stakeholder Response Team should be established which a dedicated Data Officer could contact when a setting indicated its intention to close.

The key role of the Stakeholder Response Team would be to assess the impact a potential closure on children and on their local community, to examine other options to closure, to see if the setting can continue to operate. Or to prepare a plan for the setting if closure cannot be avoided, ensuring it involved engagement by the local community, including other Early Years and School Age Care settings.

At the time we were glad to see the Joint Oireachtas committee support these recommendations in their report on Challenges facing the Eary Childhood Care and Education sector (March 2024).

Unfortunately, the recommendations from the report were not implemented before the end of the last term of government and do not currently feature in the Programme for Government.

Early Childhood Ireland believes that these recommendations are now urgent. The government will spend a record €1.4billion this year on the Early Years and School Age Care system. The Department of Children and other stakeholders need to ensure that this public investment delivers for children. Alongside its general oversight of funding programmes, regulation and other vital public management, it is time to ensure it has a closer role in monitoring and examining closures, especially considering this level of investment of resources, and the impact on children, settings and communities.

Considering the recent renewed focus on this matter, we wrote to every TD, Senator and Minister in the Oireachtas outlining the details of Early Childhood Ireland’s proposal, and inviting them to adopt our policy, and to inform their Parties approach to Early Years and School Age Care. As a result, in the coming weeks Early Childhood Ireland will be taking meetings with several groupings within the Oireachtas and will work constructively with them to ensure better outcomes for providers and families.

We will keep our members up to on the outcomes of these engagements and we will continue to call for better state supports for providers who are facing closures which could otherwise be avoided.

If you have any questions or would like to know more about our work, please contact [email protected]