Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 16 June 2020
930. Deputy Mary Lou McDonald asked the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if she will provide the maximum number of children and staff per pod in crèches and early learning facilities on reopening; and if her Department will provide guidance to providers on this matter. [11628/20]
View answerOn Friday 5 June, I launched a range of online resources and guidance to support service providers, practitioners and parents to prepare for the reopening of Early Learning and Care and School-Age Childcare settings, including childminders. The Guidance for Reopening webpage is available on the First 5 website. The Guidance for Reopening webpage includes health guidance (published by the HSE Health Protection Surveillance Centre), regulatory guidance and practice supports.
The public health advice from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC) is that while there is no evidence base on which to define a maximum play-pod size, play-pods should be kept as small as is likely to be reasonably practical in the specific childcare context.
The maximum adult-child ratios required by the Early Years Services Regulations, 2016 will remain unchanged and so services must continue to operate within them. In most cases there should be either one or two adults in a ‘play-pod’ in order to keep play-pod sizes small. Therefore, play-pod size will be limited by those ratios. For example, a play-pod that involves 3-6 year olds in full day care may have a maximum size of either nine (one adult and eight children) or 18 (two adults and 16 children). For children under 1 in full day care the maximum play-pod size can be either four (one adult and three children) or eight (two adults and six children). For 1-2 year olds maximum play-pod sizes may be six (one adult and five children) or 12 (two adults and ten children).
While in the majority of cases there will be no more than two adults in a play-pod, there may be some scenarios where a third adult will be required e.g. where an individual is employed to support a child with additional needs or where Tusla, as regulator, has suggested that an additional staff member is required to help with a group where there is challenging behaviour. In those instances, the additional adult would not result in any additional children in the play-pod.
