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

I thank Deputy Kyne for his question. I welcome the opportunity to speak about the child care committees. Thirty-three city and county child care committees were established in 2001 under the office of the Minister of State with responsibility for children to help support the development of local child care. The current role of the committees is to assist the Department of Children and Youth Affairs in improving and expanding the quality of child care services available to parents in their area. The committees offer information and guidance locally on a wide variety of services, including advice on establishing a child care business, organising child care information sessions and supporting parents by providing information on local facilities and parent networks. The committees also have a significant role in the delivery of a range of child care support programmes which are currently implemented by the Department.

Each committee submits an annual implementation plan which outlines its strategy for the year and the annual funding level is determined on the basis of this plan. The implementation plan provides for a range of activities to be undertaken by the committees and identifies locally focused initiatives which are designed to address specific local needs. In 2014, a total of just over €10 million has been allocated to the child care committees. All Deputies will acknowledge that these committees have played an important role in the development of child care services in local areas since their introduction in 2001. They have worked closely with this Department and previously with the former office of the Minister for Children in co-ordinating the increase in the number of child care places in their areas. The introduction of the additional support programmes and the expansion of the existing programmes have significantly increased the workload undertaken by the committees.

In answer to the Deputy's question, the committees will continue to play a key role in the ongoing development of child care services and will have a central role in supporting the implementation of new and emerging child care policy developments, including in the area of quality improvements. Future developments with respect to child care committees can be further considered in the context of the establishment this year of a new national quality support service for early years and child care services which forms a key objective of my eight-point agenda to improve quality standards in early years and child care services. Increasingly, the Department works collectively with the committees. It is important to bring together the information and the views of the child care committees in order to have a national picture of their work. They have tended to work locally, but we are focusing on bringing them together and obtaining good-quality data from them and also having the benefit of their insights about what is happening in order to identify key issues in the sector and, indeed, key solutions.

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