Clever Clogs Childcare Services in Ballyconnell is to close its créche facility after 16 years in business. Recruitment and retention of staff, poor wages, crippling bureaucracy that is "breaking people", over-regulation and historic under-funding of the sector by the government are the reasons the owner, Paula Donohoe, gave for her "agonising decision" to close.
Opened in 2008, the much-needed service expanded to a second purpose-built site in 2018 due to demand. Paula says she has not been able to attract or keep staff for the pressurised, responsible and over-regulated service for 0-3 year-olds. Her attempts to hire staff from Spain didn't work out because of what she calls "another failed government policy": housing.
At a minimum wage of €15.50 per hour for a degree-educated childcare leader in a period of full employment in this country, Paula says many of her staff are looking at jobs in the likes of Lidl as a better-paid option with less responsibility: "`We found it hard to recruit and retain staff in particular in the 0-3 age range," Paula told the Joe Finnegan Show earlier, "And, I say in particular because while is a fantastic area to work in it's also a very pressurised zone to work in because of ratios, which in my opinion are wrong, and we could not and cannot attract and retain staff into our 0-3 building."
