Early Childhood Ireland, an organisation responsible for early childcare, education and pre-school, have revealed that currently there was one Inspector for every 21,000 children in one of their Dublin pre-schools last year.
The organisation also revealed that some of their creches can go without inspection for up to five years, according to Newstalk. Teresea Heeney, Chief Executive of Early Childhood Ireland, called for more investment for inspections.
TD Roisin Shortall on obtaining the figures stated: "Dublin north east, comprising north Dublin and the north-east of the country, has the lowest number of inspectors - only five in total. This is despite having one of the highest child populations.
"The ratio of inspectors to children in the area is one per 21,052. By comparison, the western area has a ratio of one per 6,893."
The figures obtained from Tulsa, the family and child agency, show wide variation across the country with the West fairing better than pre-schools located in the East, particularly in Dublin.
According to Shortall, the report show that 2,432 inspections were carried out by 42 pre-school inspectors last year. However, there are 4,600 facilities.
The Irish Independent states that Ms. Shortall tried to find out how much it cost to run inspections but the information was not made available to her. She called on the Government to find the necessary funds for inspections.
