Sir, - I am delighted that Maire Geoghegan-Quinn's piece (Opinion, August 8th) identified childcare as one of the areas requiring the Minister for Finance's special attention in the next Budget. For nearly 30 years the IPPA has supported the providers of early childhood care and education. Unfortunately, far from supporting the organisations which have been doing the Government's support work for years, the Government has given no extra financial assistance to meet the vastly increased demand on these organisations or to support our members in upgrading premises to legislative standards.
Further, the minute grant-aid available to some members, through LEADER, county enterprise boards, etc., is not available to many others, and in any event is insufficient and inconsistently provided. The employment potential of the childcare sector, to which Ms Geoghegan-Quinn refers, is not being exploited either. What support there is for training adults, say, or providing incentives to take up employment in child care and education is sporadic and unco-ordinated at best.
Sadly, some of our members have indicated that, rather than ask hard-pressed parents for greatly increased fees, they will close their pre-schools - hardly the outcome envisaged by the 1991 legislation. As Ms Geoghegan-Quinn rightly points out, we want our children to be protected and nurtured by committed, trained, experienced adults. In every other sector, provision for support of upgrading is provided in conjunction with legislation requiring improvements: why not in childcare?
IPPA, the early childhood organisation, is an active participant in the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform's expert working group on childcare, whose aim is the development of a national framework for childcare. While every avenue to secure our children's future is being explored, our concern is that the needs of our youngest citizens will not carry political clout when the Budget is decided. - Yours, etc., Hilary Kenny,
Director of Services,
Irish Pre-School Playgroups Association,
North King Street,
Dublin 7.