Concern as Letterkenny créche fees to rise by 21 per cent

by Louise Doyle

CONCERN has emerged in the wake of an imminent 21 per cent hike in childcare fees at a Letterkenny facility.

Parents of children who attend Wonder Years Childcare Centre in Rossbracken received an email in recent days detailing the increase, to come into effect in September.

One upset parent told the Donegal News that they will be faced with an outgoing of €945 per month for two children, paying €100 an extra weekly.

“We get Early Childhood and Education Programme (ECCE) and National Childcare Scheme (NCS) payments but our new outgoing will be €945 a month. I don’t know how we or other families will afford this increase.

“Wonder Years receives core funding, which means fees should be frozen. In fact, Minister for Children Roderic O’Gorman confirmed on a recent Morning Ireland interview that any créche receiving core funding could not rise their fees this year.

“I know of one parent who has had to give in her notice where she works to take her child out of childcare because of the increased fees.

“Their fees are more expensive than créches in Dublin. No other crèche in Letterkenny is raising their prices.

“They know that parents’ backs are against the wall. I am coming at this as a parent and a taxpayer. I understand that businesses have cost pressures in this climate, but there is no reason for a significantly profitable business, according to Pobal, to increase fees by 21 per cent. Such a fee is based on greed, mis-management or a combination of both,” claimed the parent.

The parent also accused the facility of “trying to circumvent legislation” by opening at 6am.

“Last year, Wonder Years changed its closing time from 6pm to closing at 5.30pm, citing costs and no demand for services after 5.30pm. This year, to get around the core funding legislation, they have changed their opening hours to open at 6am. There is no demand for this. They will claim there is, as they have to make a substantial change to their service offering to justify any fee increase.

“Is there a flaw in the legislation that Wonder Years is taking advantage of? Is it ethical or right to take advantage of both parents and taxpayers? Parents are concerned that if Wonder Years get this fee increase across the line this year, they will be able to back-track on closing and opening hours next year and claim that there is no demand for this opening hour, a fact they already know.”

The parent added that parents were told they cannot choose the ECCE only option, and must combine with a paid option. The parent further claimed the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth is probing the fee hike by Wonder Years.

“I spoke with Donegal Childcare Committee today and they advise that the Department of Children (DCEDIY) are investigating the Wonder Years fee increase.”

The Donegal News visited the facility this week to speak with Vincent McNamee, Founder, and Mary Crawford, Manager, who have moved to quell ‘false suggestions’.

Responding to the concerns regarding ECCE raised by the parent, Mr McNamee said: “In terms of ECCE, the year your child turns three the government has said that you can avail of three hours free preschool. It is a way to get more parents to utilise early services because there was a benefit because they started school.

“ECCE is working with regards to the child but not to the providers trying to provide as a stand alone ECCE facility.

“But we are not an ECCE only facility. We accommodate it if we have spaces left, but we were always a full day service. In fact, the ECCE is so out of date I don’t know how ECCE facilities are doing it. The numbers don’t stack up,” said Mr McNamee.
Ms Crawford added: “We opened 20 odd years ago. We were charging more for three hours then than the government is giving us now for three hours.”

Addressing the change in opening hours, they said: “We reduced our hours during Covid to facilitate and a lot of parents came back to us to get those hours increased. We have a lot of parents who are medical staff. With the extended service, we are now open 57 and a half hours a week. We have had a lot of positive comments from parents that they are able to go back to their early shifts again.”

Mr McNamee said parents, on the whole, have been “very positive” about the changes with just three families choosing to remove their children from the créche.

“Parents, who avail of full day care, have been mainly in the positive. Three families have decided to take their children from the créche. The first parent notified us in June before this happened. Their fees have gone from €74.80 per week to €109.60 – an increase of €34.08. The second has three children. Their old fee was €141.25 and it has now gone to €240.25 – an increase of €33 per child. The third parent who notified us they were leaving, the old price was €138.70 and it was going to €139.90, an increase of €1.20. They are the only parents who have left.”

Asked if Donegal County Childcare Committee was made aware of the increase in fees at Wonder Years, Mr McNamee said: “Anyone who needs to be aware is aware.”

Wonder Years has almost 100 full time staff and is among the highest payers within the early years sector.

Providing a breakdown of costs for last year, Mr McNamee said: “ECCE accounted for 10 per cent of our income, core made up 21 per cent, while NCS made up 43 per cent of our income and almost 25 per cent was parents. On the issue of core funding, Mr McNamee said Wonder Years received approximately €500,000 in core funding last year, which is used to run the business.

“We don’t know what our next core funding will be. Core funding works on two basis – base rate and graduate uplift,” said Mr McNamee, who added that it is the government who is “being unfair” to all in the sector.

“They (the government) said they wanted a graduate led workforce but as soon as they saw how many had graduated they changed it to pay only one graduate per room (of the créche). We pay graduates more wages, so why would the government not pay them more? They are not being fair. The maximum we could get was €600,000. That is reduced to €500,000. They say it only affected a few créches, we were one for them. There was no rationale for this. When they talk about increasing core funding, they talk only about the base rate because they did not change the graduate uplift.”

Mr McNamee and Ms Crawford said Wonder Years offers so much more than many other créches, which is reflective in their fees.

“We introduced a scholarship three years ago and we have spent €50,000 on upskilling through this programme and that is a huge investment. Ninety-five per cent of our total staff is now graduate level through our own programme.

“We have a highly educated workforce here. What you’re seeing here is different to other early years services. We want every child here to have the best experience, it is not a one sheet fits all. Why we’re more expensive is we have a different standard of quality. The educators individually plan for every child they have in their care that day. In truth, you can only do that through a skilled workforce.

“Some children might be with us 40 hours a week. Those hours may be the most positive or only interaction they get, and what they do with us can impact them for their life. We want to build the foundation for those children for lifelong educational development.”

The business, which currently has 338 children on its books, was declared bankrupt in 2018.

“It was the most harrowing experience of our lives. Through that experience the receivers did a report through Deloitte and they categorically found what was wrong. It was fees. We weren’t charging enough. We are not going to go bankrupt twice,” said Mr McNamee.

Department of Children issues statement

IN response to claims made, a Department spokesperson told the Donegal News: “The Department cannot comment on any specific service, however, we can provide some general context.

“To be eligible for Core Funding it is necessary for all Partner Services to agree to the Core Funding Fee Management terms and conditions as laid out in the Core Funding Partner Service Funding Agreement.

“These terms and conditions requires services not to increase the fees charged to parents above what was charged on 30 September 2021.

“For the third year of Core Funding (commencing September 2024), the Department has introduced a process whereby services whose fees are below their county average can apply for an assessment to increase their fees to an approved level.

“This is an application-based process whereby a service will undergo an assessment to determine the need to increase fees.

“Where the need is identified, permission will be granted to increase fees to a level determined by the Department.

“Applications for the Fee Increase Assessment opened on the 31 July 2024. The Department is currently in the process of confirming the eligibility of services that submitted eligibility declarations.

“No service has been approved for a fee increase to date as applications have not reached that stage in the process.

“Where an individual identifies a case of a potential breach of Core Funding fee management rules by a service in Core Funding, they may seek to have this examined and a conclusion reached through the Core Funding Fee Review process.

“The first point of the process is with the City/County Childcare Committees (CCC). Details for
local CCC can be found on www.myccc.ie.

“A list of Core Funding Partner Services can be found on the Together for Better website along with the allocation of Core Funding paid to each service in year 1 of the Scheme.”

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