All childcare should be covered
Sinn Féin Foyle MLA Karen Mullan has called on the Education Minister to include community childcare facilities in the Department’s childcare recovery scheme.
The Foyle MLA said: “For the Minister and his officials to exclude community creches and childcare facilities from the recovery plan is a serious mistake. These facilities provide a vital service operating primarily in areas of high levels of disadvantage.
“They typically receive quite small pots of funding and have little or no additional income streams, yet they have still had the same levels of expenditure that other settings have had in order to safely reopen.
“I have written to the Minister and he has advised me that his officials will look into it. The Department for Education must support these vital community facilities in the time ahead.”