The Minister for Children must appear before the Oireachtas Children\u2019s Committee to outline how and when proposals for a public model of childcare will be achieved, according to Social Democrats children spokesperson Aidan Farrelly.<\/p>\n
Deputy Farrelly said:<\/p>\n
\u201cYesterday\u2019s announcement of the government\u2019s plan to provide a public childcare system omitted any and all detail of how and when this would be achieved – today, we\u2019ve learned that their endeavour will be taken from a standing start.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlmost 1,000 early years childcare services have shut down since 2019, while 40,000 children are on waiting lists around the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cChildcare provision is already in a dire state in this country, yet all we got yesterday was an empty gesture from the Minister for Children with regard to a vague intent to repurpose or construct buildings for future services.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Minister must provide further detail on how many buildings have been identified for purchase, if buildings have been identified in all areas of need, and what the timeline for the purchase and refurbishment of these properties is.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn areas where there are no suitable buildings to purchase, have viable sites been identified for development? If they have been, what is the timeline and cost of construction identified by the Department? Yesterday\u2019s announcement is vacuous without substance.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve written a letter to the Chair of the Oireachtas Children and Equality Committee to ask for Minister Foley to appear before us and provide these clarifications.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Department\u2019s move towards a public, not-for-profit childcare model is welcome, but we must be provided with details on how the government attends to achieve its rollout – this must urgently be provided to the Children’s Committee.\u201d<\/p>\n
January 21st, 2026<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Minister for Children must appear before the Oireachtas Children\u2019s Committee to outline how and when proposals for a public model of childcare will be achieved, according to Social Democrats children spokesperson Aidan Farrelly. Deputy Farrelly said: \u201cYesterday\u2019s announcement of the government\u2019s plan to provide a public childcare system omitted any and all detail of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11557,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[396,296,540,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aidan-farrelly","category-childcare","category-children","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n