Abuse in private crèches poses need for public childcare system

The instances of neglect and maltreatment and the facts around the shoddy inspection regime that current exists are now well documented in the press and media.

The instances of neglect and maltreatment and the facts around the shoddy inspection regime that current exists are now well documented in the press and media.

However discussion around the response required to prevent this happening again is completely one sided in the sense that the fact needs to be recognised that we have for the best part a lucrative for-profit expensive system of childcare lends itself to inadequate staffing and resources to ensure children are properly looked after and assisted in their development.

The system we have is a legacy of the previous boom where double income households and long commuting created an unprecedented demand for childcare that the previous government left the to the privateers to satisfy but at an enormous cost to low and middle income families. The is a reason why childcare in Ireland has been referred to as a ‘second mortgage’. The government subsidies provided to assist parents meeting the cost of the most expensive childcare in Western Europe while undoubtedly welcomed by parents in reality served to subsidise the massive profits of these operations some of which at least we now know skimp on staffing and resources.

Rather than simply promising a more thorough and rigorous system of inspections by the HSE which of course has to be delivered upon a more profound debate is now needed about the need to eliminate profit from our system of childcare altogether by means of replacing what we have with a comprehensive publicly funded system of childcare and early years education.

Total
0
Shares
Previous Article

Sweden: Riots in Stockholm working-class suburbs

Next Article

Dáil bill represents attack on fundamental workers' rights

Related Posts
Read More

One demo is not enough

Start a campaign of industrial action with a one day general strike before the Budget

Another €15 billion in cuts and tax increases will just make this disaster even worse. ICTU says the “National Recovery Programme” will cause another 90,000 job losses. A deflationary programme of nearly €30 billion cuts/tax hikes over six years will guarantee mass unemployment and mass emigration for years to come.

Read More

US – A graphic picture of decline

New book charts economic, social and political decay of America

 

“No one can say when the unwinding began – when the coil that held Americans together in its secure and  sometimes stifling grip first gave way. Like any great change, the unwinding began at countless times, in  countless ways – and at some moment the country, always the same country, crossed a line of history and  became irretrievably different”.

So begins George Packer in this tremendous book, The Unwinding, which paints a devastating picture of US  capitalism in decline. Similar to Packer, Karl Marx described the collapse of the Spanish Empire as a “slow and  inglorious decay”. The difference is that Spain’s decline took place over centuries, whereas the astonishing  collapse of the US – still, nevertheless, the strongest capitalist power on the planet – has been compressed  into 50 or 60 years!