An exhausted dad who is forced to bring his 18-month-old daughter on an early morning train journey to creche in another county says the current government has ‘failed the Irish people’.
Brendan Cusack from Dunshaughlin, Co Meath has to wake his daughter Ella up at 5.30 am every morning for the trip to the capital because he can’t access local childcare.
A three-year waiting lists for local creches means that the public servant is forced to make the gruelling journey every morning on the 6.50am train to the Dublin Docklands.
Brendan who works a 58 hour week spends over four hours a day commuting to and from work says that it’s not the life he imagined for his family.
He fumed: “I never imagined that I’d be forced to go on a train with an 18-month-old just to access childcare. She’s a toddler and not always going to be in good form, they pick up bugs and get sick, you are praying that she will be quiet on the train because if she starts crying people start cutting you looks. It’s not easy.
“I know the childcare sector is facing challenges at the moment with insurance and under funding so the lack of creche places might be the knock on effect.
“It’s not like we are asking the government to send people to the moon, it’s not that hard for them to figure it out.
“Ella is the next generation of this country and she is getting hammered already before she even gets going. It’s just a mess.”
The Dunshaughlin dad describes the gruelling day.
“I have to go into Ella at 5.30am when she is in a deep sleep to wake her up. She is just sleepwalking after that. Her bag has to ready as well as our own belongings literally waiting to go from the night before. I put them in the car, fly down to the train station and then get on to the train and go.
“I arrive at the M3 Parkway at 6.40 am, get her into the buggy and head on to the train that leaves at 6.50 am.
“I have to stand beside her buggy for 40 minutes on the train.
“Any other train after the 6:50 is too packed and I cannot get on. Some people look at me like I’m an inconvenience because of the size of the buggy and stare at me as if to say how dare I bring a child on a commuter train, it just makes me feel horrible.
“At 8.05 am I drop my daughter off to her crèche and I head to work myself.
“I work a 58 hour week and I spend four hours and fourteen minutes a day travelling to and from work, that’s 22 hours a week on top of my 58 hours.
“I get home around 7.20 and by the time that I get in the door, I might just be lucky to catch Ella and give her a hug before she goes to bed.
“Ella has to spend over eight hours a day in a crèche. In the evenings my wife has to pick her up as I’m still at work. She had to change her working hours to finish at 4:30 so she can collect Ella and catch the 5.10 train the only one that will have room for the buggy.”
Brendan added: “When we purchased our house in Dunshaughlin just over a year ago we found out there was over a two-year waiting list to put your child into a creche. We enquired further afield in Dunboyne, Ratoath and other areas only to find out there were no spaces available in those areas either.
“I’m from Mayo and my wife’s family is in Cavan and Fermanagh so we literally have no one to help with Ella, we are on our own and have no option but to bring her all the way into Dublin city centre just so we can go to work so we can put food on the table and a roof over our heads.”
