New figures show least 30 Cork childcare centres closed last year

At least 30 childcare facilities closed in Cork city and county in 2023, according to Tusla and Pobal.

Figures released to the Labour Party’s South East Ward candidate Peter Horgan showed that there were 101 cessations of school-age services — meaning after-school services — between January and November 2023, and that 13 of these were in Cork.

Nationally, the number of children registered to services that closed between January 2023 and mid-January 2024 was 364, Pobal said.

These closures have affected 133 Cork school-aged children: 46 in the city and 87 outside of it, a higher number than in any other county.

Mr Horgan told The Echo: “It’s discouraging to see so many closures take place in Cork and to anecdotally hear from parents being put under so much pressure.

“There is clearly an issue to address, and we are calling on the minister for children Roderic O’Gorman not to turn a blind eye to these closures, especially the impact on those staff let go.

“After-school services play a vital role for parents and families who are unable to remote work.

“These closures disproportionately impact frontline workers in healthcare and gardaí, and we have to support those workers to have the right childcare they need.

Tusla and Pobal both released further figures for early-years services to The Echo, sharing the number of closures of full day care, part-time, and sessional pre-school and creche services that were forced to shut in 2023.

The total number of closures of early-years services notified to Tusla in 2023 was 115, with all but three counties (Leitrim, Offaly, and Carlow) seeing at least one closure.

Cork, with 17 closures, was second only to Dublin, which saw 34 early-years services shut their doors.

It comes as several Cork providers have complained about issues with “chronic underfunding” in the sector over the past few years. Thousands of people took to Dublin’s streets last September to protest the levels of funding and administration within the sector.

Following this protest, when many providers warned that they would have to close if changes were not made, Elaine Dunne, chairperson of the Federation of Early Childhood Providers, said that no help was introduced in the budget.

Amanda Spitteri, who was forced to close five afterschool services, three of which were in Cork, previously told The Echo that childcare providers were victims of “a mass culling”, saying: “My interpretation of it is that they’re trying to make a public model, so they’re deliberately culling these smaller services that won’t be required for it.”