The Fingal ICTU centre for the unemployed runs a small creche upstairs from its offices in Finglas village. The creche can cater for around 20 children, who are divided into two groups, with the under-twos separated from the older children.
It has everything you expect in a well-run creche: lots of toys and books, a dressing-up box, pictures on the walls, kid-sized tables and chairs and child-proof gates between the doors.
It looks like a typical creche catering for a professional clientele, but it's not. This is a community daycare centre, funded largely through the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform. Most of the parents using the creche are on Community Employment schemes in the ICTU centre, or local VTOS educational programmes and they pay a nominal fee of £20 a week.
The creche is non-profit making and this, says supervisor Deirdre Hopkins, is what makes it different.
"A commercial creche is driven by profit. We're driven by care not profit." Another major difference is that the children are only in the creche for four hours each day, from either 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. or 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. This is because the programmes their parents are involved in are largely part-time and they are not encouraged to leave the children in the facility when they are not working or in school. However, Hopkins maintains that daycare has no particular affect on children, whether it is full-time or part-time. "Children have no concept of time. What they understand, and what they need, is routine. Whether someone puts their child in a creche all day or just half a day is a parental decision. Four hours suits us, but it's the quality of care that counts."
The creche does have its problems. Hopkins has only two fully-trained carers - the other staff are still in CE training and insufficient funding means there are no outdoor facilities.
However, the parents feel the creche has hugely positive effects on their children, as Gerry Hopkins, manager of the ICTU centre and parent of 18month-old Conor says. "If he was at home all day he wouldn't have access to other children. I can really see a development in him since he's been here."
