A childcare facility in Tuam, Co Galway, faces closure due to building fire-safety concerns, leaving 97 children without a premises and 19 staff members facing unemployment.
For the last seven years, Tuam Parish has rented out part of its community centre to the owners of Happily Ever After Childcare, a creche that runs preschool and afterschool services catering for children from six months to 12 years of age.
Happily Ever After said it is facing closure for the “second time in two years”, as the Tuam Parish finance committee decided not to proceed with “essential” fire-safety works.
The parish council recently announced it will not proceed with the works. With the fire officer issuing a closure notice, the creche is due to cease operations at the premises on October 31st, amid an “unprecedented childcare crisis”, Happily Ever After said.
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In a joint statement, Happily Ever After owners Sara Walsh and Claire McGrath said they are “absolutely devastated” to be told the works will not be proceeding after they “poured our hearts and souls into this facility”.
They said the decision has left the creche, its staff and families in an “impossible position”.
In an online statement, Tuam Parish said it had been “dedicated to finding a workable solution” to the fire-safety issue and had been “proactive in its approach”, spending more than €20,000 to appoint a project manager, engage a fire-safety consultant and an electrical consultant engineer.
It said recently that work costs were estimated at €1.2 million, which “far outweigh the capacity of the limited parish finances”.
“After careful consideration of all possible options, the Parish Finance Committee has had to make the difficult decision not to proceed with the upgrade works ... We share and understand the considerable disappointment of the Creche Operators and, especially, the families who currently avail of the Creche services,” it said.
Megan Flaherty, a nurse in Claremorris, Co Mayo, has four children attending Happily Ever After, with a fifth who was enrolled for next year. The creche has run buses to and from school, meaning Flaherty could drop her kids off in the morning and collect them all from the same building in the afternoon.
“We’re hoping that the parish hears our voices,” she said.
Among the required upgrades are a narrow upstairs hallway that needs widening and a wall that has to be knocked down. The ceiling must be made thicker and floor work may also be required. “It’s not like we’re demolishing the whole building,” Ms Flaherty said, suggesting these upgrades “can be done”.
Over the weekend, she and other parents protested at the creche, campaigning for a solution to be found before Happily Ever After ceases operations. By Tuesday afternoon, more than 1,500 signatures had been gathered for an online petition to save the facility.
At present, there is no alternative facility in the area capable of taking in so many children and fulfilling the creche’s commitments to families. Happily Ever After stays open during school holidays and facilitates the affordable Early Childhood Care and Education Programme.
Jamie Moughan, another parent who attended the weekend protest, questioned how she will manage if the creche closes.
“It’s just one income in this house so I need to be working,” said Ms Moughan, who works in community employment with the Department of Social Protection.
“It’s the logistics of it. The town does not have [an alternative facility]. There’s no way that a mother can drop a child, with the traffic in Tuam, at one place and be in another, and then be at work,” she said.
“There is no other facility in the town that will take her to her school and that will keep her for midterm, Halloween, Easter, summer, when I’m at work. Where does that leave me?”
Junior Minister and Galway East TD Seán Canney said he will raise the matter with the Minister for Education, though he said finding a new building to house the creche would be a complex and drawn-out process.
