‘Everything I had in savings is gone’ - Kiltimagh crèche owner warns of childcare 'crisis'

A KILTIMAGH crèche owner providing childcare services for 85 children has had to withdraw €20,000 from her daughter’s college fund to keep her business open.

Marita Webb-Shannon, who owns Tigh na Leanaí crèche in Kiltimagh, has warned that the Government’s childcare funding model is ‘failing’ providers and that many smaller providers will close unless action is taken.

The Federation of Early Childhood Providers has warned that 250 childcare facilities across the country could close due to spiraling costs, fee freezes and issues with the Government’s new Core Funding model.

Speaking exclusively to The Mayo News, Ms Webb-Shannon said that she will be forced to close her business if the minimum wage for early years education workers rises to €15 an hour as planned.

She is currently trying to set up an overdraft facility with her bank due to the ongoing financial strain of running the business.

‘Just not working’

“What the Government are doing for childcare at the moment just is not working,” Ms Webb-Shannon said. “Unfortunately, it’s going to be an awful lot of women they’re going to put out of the workforce. I doubt there will be very many men that will be staying at home looking after the kids. I don’t mean that in a bad sense, but it will be the women that will be the ones that are going to suffer, and their children.

“[Parents ask me] ‘Are you going to be there next year?’. I honestly have to truthfully tell them that I really don’t know. I don’t have anything more to sink into my business…everything I had in savings is gone.”

Last week, Ms Webb-Shannon and several other providers staged a protest outside Dáil Éireann demanding action to prevent more facilities closing, and calling on the Government to review the Core Funding model, which sees providers paid between €0.55 and €1.66 per hour per child.

If Tigh na Leanaí is forced to close, there will be just one childcare facility left in the area. (Another local crèche recently closed following the passing of its owner, Mary Diamond.)

According to Ms Webb-Shannon, ‘nobody is interested’ in purchasing crèches due to their lack of financial viability.

“The Government, they just don’t seem to really care, and they don’t really see the crisis that is coming in both staffing and in people shutting down their services,” she said.

Under the Core Funding model, childcare providers must pay back childcare fees to the Government for days where individual children do not attend. An hourly increase of €0.03 per child was recently granted to providers.

“The government won’t pay us if the children aren’t in, so it doesn’t benefit us,” explained Ms Webb-Shannon.

“They need to sit down at a round table and listen to the people on the floor. The TDs need to come in and do a day in a childcare business and see what it’s all about.

“I, umpteen times, asked them in the past to come and just stand one day in my service and nobody has ever, ever appeared.”

‘Not okay’

Elaine Dunne, the founder of the Federation of Early Childhood Providers, said that the government is ‘failing’ crèche owners by not addressing the ongoing funding shortages.

“The fact that you’ve to use your savings to subsidise your business, that’s not okay,” Ms Dunne said, referring to Ms Webb-Shannon’s case.

“We can’t plan ahead. Every business is supposed to have three-and-and-a-half months of wages in your account at all times. We’d never have that in a million years.”

Last week, Ms Dunne was informed that one childcare provider in Mayo would be shutting its doors.

Speaking on The Pat Kenny Show on Newstalk, Ms Dunne warned that providers based in rural Ireland had taken ‘a massive hit’ under the Core Funding model.

“Government funding is failing those services. We have put so many solutions on the table for Minister O’Gorman and his department, and they haven’t listened,” she told The Mayo News.

“We went through all of the complications and yet Minister O’Gorman doesn’t seem to understand it… because if he understood, we wouldn’t have been out [protesting].”

In 2023, the government allocated more than €1 billion to early learning and childcare, including €259 million for Core Funding. In its second year of operation, Core Funding will increase by €28 million, an 11 percent increase, to a total of €287 million.

“Core Funding is designed to support improved quality of provision, improved pay and conditions for staff, management of parental fees and sustainability and stability of income for services,” said a Department of Children spokesperson last month.

“The most recent data since Core Funding was introduced shows the number of service closures has reduced significantly compared to previous years.”