Máire Hoctor (Tipperary North, Fianna Fail)

I am taking this matter on behalf of my colleague, the Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children, Deputy Barry Andrews.

The main supports the Government makes available to parents in respect of their child care costs are child benefit and the early child care supplement. The latter payment, in recognition of the higher child care costs of pre-school children, is the responsibility of the Office of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs. It alone amounts to expenditure of approximately €500 million in a full year. These payments are universal and benefit all parents, regardless of income, labour market status or the type of child care chosen. In addition to these universal supports, the Government's child care policy also recognises the need to target additional supports towards disadvantaged families.

Under the Equal Opportunities Childcare Programme 2000-2016, co-funded under the European Social Fund, targeted support was provided through the staffing support grant scheme. Community-based and not-for-profit child care providers with a strong focus on disadvantage were awarded grant aid toward staffing costs to allow them to offer reduced fees to disadvantaged parents. Funding under the scheme was originally awarded for a limited period during which services were expected to move towards sustainability. This funding was subsequently continued to the end of 2007, where it was considered necessary to enable services to remain accessible to disadvantaged parents. This continuation of funding was subject to the condition that tiered fee structures were implemented by the services in question.

The National Childcare Investment Programme 2006-2010 has a funding allocation of €575 million and aims to create an additional 50,000 new child care places. It is expected that approximately 22,000 of these places will be in the private sector with 28,000 places in the community/not-for-profit sector. Up to 20% of the overall places will be for children in the three to four years age group and will provide an early childhood care and education focus.

These child care programmes have a combined budget of over €1 billion and are projected to create or support 90,000 child care places. Part of this investment includes the new communitychild care subvention scheme. Funding amounting to €154.2 million will be allocated to the new scheme over the next three years, a significant increase over the €37 million 2007 funding allocation for the support scheme under the equal opportunitieschild care programme. Services have been guaranteed that they will receive at least 90% of their current funding levels in the second half of this year and not less than 85% in 2009.

The community crèches, which account for approximately 20% of the service providers nationally, are central and valuable players in providing quality child care at prices affordable for all, including the most disadvantaged in society. The new scheme will continue to recognise and support the valuable investment in the community/not-for-profit sector and ensure the tiered fees necessary to make this a reality.

The provider of the service referred to by Deputy Deenihan recently contacted the Office of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs. It stated the overall parental profile of the children using the service has altered substantially since its original application for inclusion under the scheme. Consequently the subvention which has been allocated to the service for the second half of this year no longer meets the specific needs of the service. The Office of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs has advised the group to submit full details of the current parental profile to allow a full assessment of the group's concerns to be made.

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