Childcare Services
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-21
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Pádraig O'Sullivan (FF), Cork North-Central

It was remiss of me to forget that the Minister of State was in Glanmire when people were in the depths of despair after that flooding incident. I know they were most grateful at that time. They were also grateful to the Taoiseach and the then Minister, Michael McGrath, who was also there at the time. It was remiss of me to forget that, but I know the community in Glanmire certainly will not.
In the brief time that I have, I want to make the case again. There will be dozens of these projects across the country. We will all have them in our constituencies. We will all be putting our best foot forward to try to get one of these over the line in each of our areas. I want the Minister of State to relay the message to the Minister, Deputy Foley, that Glanmire is unique in many respects, especially on the northside of Cork city. It is probably the single biggest area where new housing developments are being built on the north-eastern side of the city. There has been a large influx of young families but, unfortunately, many of them have nowhere to send their children locally and they are sending them further afield.
In the last couple of weeks, an announcement was made to close one of the naíonraí, which is one of the only language provision childcare facilities that we have. Many of those parents have to go to Mayfield and other parts of the city to avail of childcare. That discommodes people because it might not be part of their normal route to work and given the traffic and having to ferry children left, right and centre across the city, it is often difficult to make the journey. In one fell swoop, we can secure 100 to 150 childcare places, which would be a massive boost for an area where primarily young, working families are situated. The building owner is on board and Cork City Childcare is supportive. It is one of two applications that have come forward from my side of the city. I am pleading with the Minister of State to take the message back to the Minister that Glanmire needs its slice of that €135 million.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-04-21/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:08+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-21