Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I propose to take Questions Nos. 11, 20 and 21 together.

Community child care facilities are important partners in the delivery of affordable, accessible and high-quality child care. The majority of community child care services are operating well and have been able to manage issues they face within the structures available, including by availing of support from county and city child care committees, Pobal and my Department. Nevertheless, I have implemented a number of substantial measures in the past year to assist these services.

Most recently, I announced a substantial increase and expansion of the community child care subvention programme from September 2017, which will provide significant additional funding to families and services. In addition, strand 2 of the 2017 early years capital programme, which closed for application on Friday, 5 May, made €500,000 available in grants of up to €20,000 to community services which are seeking to make building improvements or undertake maintenance or refurbishment. These applications are being assessed and I anticipate recommendations on funding in the coming weeks. I have also taken steps to provide payment to community services for non-contact time for the first time. This will be available during the summer. A total of €14.5 million is available across community and private services.

The Deputies will be aware of the challenges faced by a small number of community services which have been facilitating the training of community employment participants. Deputy Eugene Murphy raised this issue in an earlier question. I made €1 million in funding available to services that identified as having difficulties in this regard. The funding will ensure regulatory changes do not hinder service delivery or the availability of child care places. I will also consider how this funding can best be deployed in 2018 to address the most urgent challenges facing child care services.

In the longer term, the independent review of the cost of quality child care will also assist in addressing these issues. My priority is to ensure we provide access to high quality and affordable child care.

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