Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the select sub-committee for inviting me to discuss the 2013 Revised Estimate - Vote 40 - for the Department of Children and Youth Affairs. The Revised Estimate for 2013 allocates gross funding to my Department of over €439.1 million which includes over €413.346 million in current funding and €25.76 million in capital funding. When appropriations-in-aid receipts of just over €5 million are taken into account, the net current funding allocated to my Department in 2013 is some €408.3 million.

The free preschool year in early childhood care and education programme has been allocated €175 million in 2013 and continues to be provided as a universal programme which is very important, giving all children equal access to free preschool education. Based on the statistics available for birth rates, there has been no decline in the number of children in the eligible age range and recent increases in birth rates indicate that the number of places will increase. The success of the programme can be seen in its high take-up rate. In total, the early child care programmes implemented by my Department make up over €260.5 million or almost 60% of its expenditure. I have had the discussion here a number of times with the committee on the amount of programmes available. Keeping these child care programmes at their current level costs the Department 60% of its expenditure.

The community child care subvention and child care education and training support schemes assist low-income parents with child care costs and came under significant funding pressures in 2012 owing to the increasing number of qualifying parents. I am pleased that the Government has increased my Department’s funding provision for child care by providing €11.5 million in 2013 for a new school age child care scheme to support parents entering employment. The scheme will commence in September. Some 6,000 after school places will be available under the scheme when fully rolled out and the Department of Social Protection is responsible for determining eligibility. The funding is expected to increase to €14 million per annum when the scheme is fully rolled out.

I am also pleased that the Government has increased my Department’s funding provision by €2.5 million to provide for the new area based response to child poverty programme. The new programme will be implemented from 2013 until 2016 and build on the learning from the three projects operated in Tallaght west, Ballymun and Darndale. We have a process under way to deal with the new applications that will be submitted. The three existing sites will continue under the new programme and, I hope, will be joined by at least three new sites later this year. As Deputies will be well aware, the programmes in place are evidence based and there is quite a piece of work to be done to ensure we learn from the three programmes on early intervention with children and families. We want to ensure the lessons learned are applied in the new projects and also mainstreamed to other services.

I am pleased to announce that the new area based programme will be co-funded by The Atlantic Philanthropies. My Department and I had approached it and asked it to continue to support the work being done. We got agreement to a €14 million investment in the area based poverty initiative in the past few weeks. The Atlantic Philanthropies will co-fund this very important work in areas of poverty, where families are under pressure and where we need to intervene in the same way that we have done in the three pilot projects.

Deputies will be aware that work is ongoing to establish the new child and family agency in terms of both organisational reforms and the preparation of the necessary legislation. Obviously the combination of HSE child welfare and protection services, family resource centres and the educational welfare services of the National Educational Welfare Board will provide a very effective starting point in ensuring supports for children and families are effective and streamlined. Deputies will be aware that €541 million has been allocated to the HSE Vote in 2013 in respect of children and family services. In addition, my Department has a further allocation of over €63.66 million in its Vote that will relate to the new agency.

My Department received a significant increase of over €19.4 million in its 2013 capital funding allocation to enable it to proceed with the Oberstown campus project that will redevelop and expand the children detention centre in Oberstown, County Dublin. As Deputies will be aware, the commencement of the project has already enabled us to ensure boys in detention are now accommodated in Oberstown rather than St. Patrick’s Institution and will allow me to end the practice of sending 17 year old boys to the institution from next year. The Government has made other announcements on the matter such as the closure of St. Patrick's Institution and that people under 18 years will no longer be sent to St. Patrick's Institution.

In addition, I am pleased that my Department’s capital funding of €5 million for child care services, youth cafés and other youth projects and the development of play and recreational facilities which is so important in giving children opportunities to develop and learn has been continued in 2013. These grant funding schemes are of major benefit to children and young people, whether in preschool services or availing of youth facilities.

With other Departments, my Department undertook a comprehensive review of expenditure in order to achieve the public expenditure savings required under the EU-IMF programme. The Department was required to contribute €41.384 million in savings in the period 2012 to 2014 and €16.028 million of these savings were required in 2013, which represented a reduction of just under 4%.

As part of the new performance accounting arrangements introduced in 2012, the subhead structure of Vote 40 is based on three new major programme areas: programme A - children and family support, programme B - sectoral programmes for children and young people, and programme C - policy and legislation. I shall give a breakdown of the €16 million savings required in 2013: €4.27 million is from programme A; €9.83 million is from programme B; and some €1.92 million is from programme C.

The current funding allocation for my Department after reduction for the 2013 comprehensive review of expenditure savings would have been of the order of €402 million. Additional savings of some €3.6 million would have arisen as a result of reduced staffing costs. However, the additional funding of €14 million provided for my Department in 2013 to support a new school age child care scheme and the area based response to child poverty programme has increased its gross current funding allocation to over €413 million. That is the correct figure.