Breeda Moynihan-Cronin (Kerry South, Labour)

I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle for the opportunity to raise this important issue, namely, the need for capital funding under the equal opportunities childcare programme for child care centres in Ventry, Lispole and Ballyferriter in the Dingle area of County Kerry.

In 2002, the Kerry county child care committee strategic plan 2002 to 2006, which secured approval from the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, identified west Kerry as an area in need of substantial development of its child care services. The three areas seeking funding are Lispole, Ventry and Ballyferriter and the child care committees of the three villages have come together under the umbrella of Coiste Curama Leanaí Chorcha Dhuibhne to co-ordinate their campaign for funding. On 16 December last the Department refused funding to Coiste Forbharta Fionn Trá in Ventry, a significant blow to the local community following a major fundraising drive locally.

The locality has a crying need for a child care centre. The existing pre-school facility, which has been in place since 1979, is in a community hall which is neither suitable nor appropriate for such a facility. Coiste Forbharta Fionn Trá has appealed the decision to the Department and I implore the Minister to award it funding.

Lispole and Ballyferriter child care committees await decisions on their applications, which were submitted to the Department in December 2003. Both communities went to great lengths to acquire sites for the construction of child care centres. For 18 months, however, ADM Ltd., which administers the funding, has led them from pillar to post with their applications and there is growing concern that the available sites may be in jeopardy if a positive outcome does not emerge from the Department soon.

At present, the facilities in Ballyferriter, a pre-school centre which caters for only 16 children, are wholly inadequate in an area of expanding population. In Lispole, the pre-school centre is located in a community hall which is subject to regular flooding.

Between Ventry, Ballyferriter and Lispole the Coiste Curama Lianaí Chorcha Dhuine intended to provide 155 child care places in their communities. The three child care committees in west Kerry, with which I met recently, believe they are being treated unfairly and strung along with questions and queries from the Department. The groups have received letters from ADM Limited. questioning aspects of their application and asking them to submit and resubmit and fill and refill forms. Then, faceless people in the Department who have never seen the position on the ground adjudicate on their applications. They are concerned that, given that the information the Department and ADM Limited. sought has already been provided, the Department is engaged in a time wasting exercise.

The three groups in question estimate it requires up to 1,000 volunteer man-hours to prepare an application for funding for child care facilities and do not believe this effort has been recognised or rewarded. Is the reason for the strict more unfair criteria the Department applied to the administration of funding under the equal opportunities childcare programme due to a decline in the amount of money available under the programme? Groups such as those in west Kerry, which found it difficult to acquire sites when the EOCP funding first became available and was plentiful are suffering now that the pot of money is drying up.

Will the Minister give an assurance that funding will be made available to the child care groups in west Kerry that have done all that was asked of them? If the Government is committed to the provision of child care services, their applications for funding should be approved.

As I have stated in the House on previous occasions when discussing staffing grants the Government attempted to remove from child care centres as of this September, the State must play a role in funding the provision of adequate and appropriate child care services. We cannot in future rely solely on capital funding from the European Union. I appeal to the Minister to fund three vital child care centres in Lispole, Ballyferriter and Ventry. The amount of money involved is relatively small and no less than the communities, parents and children of the area deserve.

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