A Ballynacally childcare business owner has moved into her brand new premises this week, thanks to her father organising its construction in just five weeks.
Twenty nine year old Laura Corbett had been running Laura’s Childcare providing a before and after school service out of Ballynacally National School since 2020 until June.
Laura is from the village, had attended the local school herself, and was keen to provide a childcare service in her home place. And so, having purchased the former Daly’s pub in the village in January, when planning permission came through her father Martin, a builder, set to work on the project building the new facility from the ground up in five weeks.
And with her dad’s help, Laura is certainly defying all the odds as many early learning and childcare operators are currently closing around the country due to increased public liability costs, higher operating costs, frozen fees, and issues around the Core funding grant.
“It was pure and utter panic to get in for September. The planning permission was late in coming through,” she said.
“We were supposed to get it in May and didn’t get it until July, and then TUSLA had to do an inspection which had a lot of paperwork involved so all those elements meant we were under pressure to open on September 2.
“That gave us less than six weeks to knock the old building and build the new one from the ground up.
“I couldn’t have done it without my father who is amazing at what he does; he blew me away with how organised and fast he worked. We had to knock the old building and get rid of the debris, starting on July 13 and the building was up and built, and I moved in on August 13. All in all it took five weeks.”
She singles out Johnny Madden, an Insulated Concrete Formwork installer from Tipperary as “fantastic”. ICF construction is a beneficial method of construction in which hollow and lightweight insulations forms are fit and set together before being filled with concrete.
“They go together with other blocks much like a Lego brick before they are slabbed and placed,” Laura explained, laughing that the four weeks she spent working on building sites for her father a few years back stood her in good stead when she tried to understand this important construction project.
She also attributes the fast turnaround time to the hard-work of Christopher Hogan and his plasterers who got the entire building plastered in just two days, an not forgetting her friends and family.
“There was a team of about 20 there at all times – it was mental. Many people were from dad’s ‘little black book’ and then we had help from my friends and partner who have also been such a huge support from helping me clean until midnight to making sandwiches for the open day, to just being on the other end of the phone. It was unbelievable the amount of hours they put in. Everyone helped through long nights early mornings, and it was all hands on deck… The DIY SOS team on television are not a patch on us,” she said.
She paid special tribute to her mother, Jackie whom she described as their “biggest support” doing everything she could to keep them sane and help in any way she could throughout the difficult build weeks which entailed long hours.
The new childcare facility has 14 children enrolled on the ECCE programme which is a universal free pre-school programme available to all eligible children for two years before starting primary school, and with room now for 22 children.
There will also be and another 12 children from Ballynacally NS who will attend the after-school programme. And Laura will be employing two new staff members at the facility – Janelle and Shauna.
And her outstanding efforts came to fruition when she held a well supported open day last week enabling the Ballynacally community along with her family and friends to gather together at the childcare facility.
Laura is qualified in FETAC Level 5 and 6 in Early Childhood Care with Special Needs and has eleven years’ experience coming straight from college to work in the sector. All she ever wanted to do was to work in childcare, and she never thought she would own her own place in village she was brought up in, and in the school she herself started in 24 years ago. As well as childcare of the highest standard, children who attend her service engage in comprehensive range of indoor and outdoor activities. Her construction team also ensured the outdoor activity areas outside the building were completed, and done to a high standard.
As for the future? “I’ll be retired at 35 – I’m exhausted,” she laughs. In the meantime, she will take a well-deserved break to Paris at Christmas time, a city she has always wanted to visit.
Sharon Dolan D’Arcy covers West Clare news. After completing a masters in journalism at University of Galway, Sharon worked as a court reporter at the Sligo Weekender. She was also editor of the Athenry News and Views.