The Chief Executive of Early Years has confirmed that the organisation will open their new Crèche with Daycare Services at South West Acute Hospital (SWAH) in early April.

Siobhán Fitzpatrick, Chief Executive Officer of Early Years- the organisation for young children, said: “We are very excited about our future involvement on the SWAH site, the crèche is a wonderful facility which will provide important childcare support for up to 70 children aged three months to 12 years old."

She added: "The site is ideally located to service families in the wider area and the facility plans to offer opening hours to meet the needs of parents. Our first task will be to get the centre up and running by early April. We aim to provide full daycare, breakfast and afterschool services and to create an early childhood centre of excellence. The centre will be called the Fermanagh Early Years Children and Family Centre and we intend that it will offer a high-quality service based on the individual needs of children.”

The crèche site at SWAH is under the remit of private finance initiative (PFI) provider Northern Ireland Health Group (NIHG) who has awarded the tender to Early Years who, in their business, evidenced quality service provision and user participation.

A spokeswoman for NIHG, said: “We wanted to ensure that the future of the centre would be secured and that a new provider would provide high quality child care services. We sincerely wish Early Years all the very best in the future.”

Early Years, the largest voluntary sector provider of early childhood services in Northern Ireland, with more than 1,200 member groups, was selected to lead the centre into the next phase of development. Early Years are working "diligently" to re-open the centre and are said to be "thrilled" to see the enterprise go forward.

The SWAH crèche site was formerly used by the Toddle In 2 nursery which closed unexpectedly at the end of August 2018.