Tusla defers deadline for fire safety assessment for crèches
The Government has delayed introducing new fire safety regulations for crèches over fears it could lead to facilities closing down.
Tusla wrote to all childcare operators this week requesting mandatory documents by December 12 if they are to to continue operating in the new year.
Fianna Fáil's spokesperson on Children and Youth Affairs Anne Rabbitte has welcomed the decision by Tusla and said the deferral was necessary.
Ms Rabbitte told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland that nearly 560 crèches are struggling to reach planning permission and fire certification standards as part of a new re-registration process.
The new regulations are “very onerous” on childcare providers and the deferral of the new standards will give older or expanded facilities time to organise the necessary fire safety certification and planning permissions, she added.
Ms Rabbitte said Tusla was seeking greater powers to be able to inform parents about inspections and also that a crèche with conditions attached to its registration must put a notice stating this on its front door.
The director of policy at Early Childhood Ireland, an organisation representing 3,800 staff in the childcare sector, has repeated a call for the Government to form an umbrella agency to provide oversight for the childcare sector.
Frances Byrne told RTÉ radio’s Today with Séan O’Rourke show that at present there are seven different agencies and government departments with some responsibility for providing oversight with regard to crèches.
If there had been one single agency “someone would have realised what would happen in 2019” when Tusla introduced new regulations, she said.
A single agency would have averted the “tsunami” of problems that have arisen including IT glitches. “It has not been a straightforward year.”
The announcement by Tusla this week that it is deferring the introduction of new safety regulations for crèches and childcare providers was “a half way house”, she said, but the issue is compounded by the fact that Tusla has not yet responded to the crèche owners who already filed the paperwork with regard to the new regulations.
