AN ESTIMATED 50 people attended a protest outside the Hyde & Seek creche involved in the RTÉ Investigates programme aired earlier this week. 

The crowd mainly consisted of locals from the area near Drumcondra who protested outside the facility at approximately 2pm today. 

Further protests are being planned for next Friday outside the facility. 

The programme raised concerns about the standard of care at the Tolka Road facility which was one of the Hyde and Seek creches featured on the programme

The protesters put up posters on the shutters of the creche which read ‘Child abuse forcing a baby to sleep’ and ‘Tusla, Tusla, do your jobs listen to the children sob’. 

Posters put on the shutters of Hyde & Seek creche on Tolka Road earlier today. Mary G Fallon Mary G Fallon

The Tolka Road creche remained open until 1pm today, according to locals asked by Dublin Live. 

“What do we want? Davy out. When do we want it? Now” was chanted at the protest.

“We feel sad as well because we only lived up at the top of the road there and we didn’t realise what was going on,” said one woman who was at the protest in an interview with Newstalk. 

Another attendee said the facility should be taken over by the HSE instead of continuing to be privately run.  

The protest was attended by Cabra-Glasnevin Social Democrats Councillor Gary Gannon who said he was contacted by locals to attend.

“They, like everybody else, were horrified watching the programme and wanted to demonstrate that they are not complicit,” Gannon told TheJournal.ie.

“They wanted to voice their opposition to what they had seen on the programme.”

Anne Davy, the owner of Hyde & Seek Childcare, stepped down from her involvement with the company before the documentary was aired on Wednesday night.

Tusla has confirmed that the Garda Child Protection Unit is opening an investigation into the issues raised by the programme about standards of care at the Hyde & Seek facility.