My son has been in hyde & seek for 2 years. Shocked and furious at what the owners have been calling care! #RTEInvestigates
— Eugene Gallagher (@hugejeans05) July 24, 2019
Are you happy that Govt money continues to go into the #hydeandseek creche? Min @KZapponeTD: “No Govt money goes into unregistered services.” But the Hyde and Seek #creche was not properly registered for 14 months. “@Tusla has the power to de-register services” #RTEInvestigates
— Morning Ireland (@morningireland) July 25, 2019
This morning.
Further to last night’s RTÉ Investigates which revealed a pattern of disturbing behaviour and practices at Hyde and Seek crèches, including fire-safety breaches and rough handling of children….
Ms Zappone told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland that she had been deeply upset by the revelations and she urged parents to “listen to their gut” if they were concerned about their child’s care.
She was particularly concerned that despite regulations and improvements that “this appalling behaviour is happening.”
However, when asked if she would be seeking the closure of the Hyde & Seek chain, she said that as Minister she did not want to say anything that would “inhibit the process.”
Latest: Katherine Zappone shocked by Hyde and Seek creche revelations (irish Examiner)
Yesterday: Staying In Tonight?
Meanwhile…
Early Childhood Ireland has just issued a statement about tonight’s #RTEInvestigates programme and the distressing findings contained therein. pic.twitter.com/XvAY6IYpVr
— Teresa Heeney (@TeresaHeeney) July 24, 2019
Seriously what do people expect when they dump their children into places like this – and they are all like this, at least some of the time. Minding small children is hard enough when they are your own and your love them. And we all know what Tulsa are.
People often have no choice; they need two incomes to pay a mortgage/rent within a reasonable distance of the place they have managed to gain employment.
These creches cost in excess of €1,000 per month. Nobody takes that kind of income loss lightly; anyone who can afford not to work full-time will do so. It’s a difficult decision in the already tough context of bringing up a family under neoliberalism.
In a first world country, in the 21st century, in the midst of compo culture, and at that price, I imagine people expect their children not be roughed-up and neglected. Are you really blaming them, as opposed to the sentient adults who decide to rough up children and profiteer off dodgy creches? The day-to-day staff are paid pathetically; it’s the owners who make a profit on this cost-cutting crap. Just like landlords, they are a class of people for whom the housing crisis in Ireland is a boon.
Well said. The parents are not to blame, they are not the ones pushing babies faces down into a mattress. They are not the ones making millions opening new creches despite a history of convictions and past child care failings. And they are not the runs running Tusla, surely one of the most toothless and inefficient agencies we have, who are meant to preside over the whole sorry mess.
They are to blame.
They vote for clowns who allow this situation to perpetuate despite all of these “problems” already having been dealt with in every other single civilized country in Western Europe.
As Lou reed said “they’ll shitthhh in the river and then complain when they can’t swim”
“They vote for clowns who allow this situation to perpetuate”
I must have missed the bit where FG got an overall majority.
If they don’t then it appears some of the parents are voting against the FF FG coalition,
she should join Fine Gael. Sometimes I forget she isn’t Fine Gael. She’s just like the rest of them. Being “shocked” and reacting to said shockedness with .. the age old FG tool of response.. inaction. Then when you’ve been in FG a few years, you develop another tool of response, .. urging. If she was in FG a while by now, she’d be “urging” Hyde and Seek to change their ways.
so, in summary…..FG?
I didn’t see the RTE programme last night, but isn’t there a systemic problem in that Tusla is not doing enough inspections or closing down under-performing crèches? Presumably that is the case, otherwise the parent wouldn’t have gone to RTE with their concerns, they’d have gone directly to Tusla.
Who does Tusla report to again? That would be Minister Katherine Zappone.
I couldn’t watch it all. How anyone can treat children like that and feel they’re entitled to money is a joke. It’s the ultimate breach of trust.
If it were my childminder, I’d be on their doorstep demanding a swift and immediate weregild.
I think you’re a little on your own with a private engagement of a childminder, but surely in our society, we should have a robust inspection regime for carers of the vulnerable, creches, nursing homes, hospitals, prisons, schools, kennels. HIQA close down an average of around a handful of nursing homes each year for example. But the mum of the tot at this creche didn’t go to Tusla with her concerns, she went to RTE, this suggests Tusla isn’t trusted to do its job.
Eoin most of my child’s friends are looked after by a combination of grandparents and childminder/creche. The childminder/creche split seems pretty even from what I know. I suspect you’re talking out your pipe.
As regards Tusla, it seems a pretty well accepted thing that they are toothless, inept and not even close to being fit for purpose. I don’t blame the parent for going to rte. We may complain about rte being a drain on public funds but rte primetime are one programme well worth the funding.
It also highlighted how easy it is for these scandals to slide from public consciousness, especially after the last expose on the childcare sector, which is something for us all to be aware of.
Apocryphally at least, private child-minding regulation in Ireland has always been a sham. An owner of a small pre-school with 25 years’ experience recently told me in some despair that she had almost gone to the wall complying with every letter of the regulations, including undertaking a time-consuming and expensive re-qualification many years into her career, all the while the dozen or so of her local competitors were nowhere near the standard required and had been laughing in the face of Tusla and its predecessors for years.
Her point was more that Tusla’s conduct was actively putting compliant facilities at a competitive disadvantage rather than alleging a poor standard of care elsewhere, but stories like this can be no surprise.
Would that not be anecdotally rather that apocryphally? I would agree, though, and I have seen this is in agriculture and construction: a wild disparity in compliance and sanction.
(anecdotal ;)
This is Ireland millie.
If you turned up on their doorstep with a complaint you would probably be arrested for harassing them.
Why aren’t they calling the rough handling of children “abuse”? It’s not simply breeches!
Sorry, I must have been distracted by my travel expenses.
Has Pat Rabbitte of Tusla been wheeled away from the breakfast table yet for comment? It’s 11:40 AM.
found this so difficult to watch – difficult to get head around it. Crèche taking 1000.e per month from overburdened parents who drop their child early morning to a facility with some peace of mind as placed in care facility that the government says is fit to provide such childcare services. Sickened for the families who have little choice. Lack of regulation allows this to happen and it will continue. Close those places down that featured last night and refuse permission to owners who featured .
It’s utopian, but I’d like to live in a country where economic factors allowed all couples to have one of them raising children at home, whilst still being able to pay the bills. This is the case for a good share of people outside of Dublin (far from everyone obviously) but seems very difficult in the capital.
lol the conservative catholic dream
If it’s a “conservative Catholic dream” that a family can live comfortably and securely in their own home on a single worker’s income, and that a parent, father or mother, can, if they wish, stay home and raise any children, then call me a conservative Catholic.
From your perspective, what’s actually wrong with that scenario?
You can lump me in with the conservative Catholics too.
Well said NJ.
me too!
You’re a conservative catholic
Well, it’d be nice yeah, but there are lots of reasons why this isn’t always desirable.
It can mean financial abuse, isolation and coercive control for the parent at home. It can mean no pension contributions and a very poor old age. If the working parent leaves or loses their job, the family is destitute and probably homeless. Unfortunately, people do have to think about giving up their livelihood in these terms.
Society has never offered proper protection for a parent in the home and never respects the independence and adult needs of non working parents.
Let’s deal with that first and then think about idealising thus lifestyle.
+equality
Could PrimeTime investigates send a few interns into LeinsterHouse with hidden cameras/microphones on them, god knows what they would pick up
They don’t bite the hand that feeds
Ho fupping hum.
Whats the bets nothing is really done about this and as for the ‘oh we are sorry, this isn’t us’ it absolutely fupping is you. Whats the bets they treat their staff like crap and then they in turn act like this?
Ireland 2019 – still not giving a toss about children, still having a fundamentalist turd like Zappone with her crocodile tears.
You are not upset minister, about the abuse of kids. You are upset because its a bother to you.
Guarantee nobody gets into any trouble about, especially not anyone in the innocent person framing agency Tusla.
Cue Zapper and Brer with their ‘we are looking at ways….etc etc etc.’
Zappine and Vardakar cut from the same cloth.
Two soulless sociopaths who care about themselves and nobody else.
She is doing a fantastic turn as an updated Archbishop John McQuaid for modern times.
What are the average profit margins in the Irish child-care market compared to other child-care markets in the rest of the Northern Europe?
How do we compare for Return-on-investment and shareholder return, staff turnover, state-subsidies for the industry sector?
How do we compare for positive societal outcomes for parents of children who are financially and, more importantly, mentally frazzled just trying to keep heads above water even though both are working in what would be regarded as good jobs
How is the State helping making life easier instead of outsourcing, to the lowest and inappropriate bidder, the very duties that make it a civilised state?
Remember Giraffe a few years ago? I know someone who was deeply upset by that. His daughter was in a Giraffe crèche at the time, though not the one featured. He felt she was unhappy but since she was not yet able to talk, he didn’t know why. Following the expose, he took her out of the crèche, packed up his family and emigrated. They haven’t looked back.