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

I propose to take Questions Nos. 7 and 21 together.

Supporting the childcare sector through the provision of capital funding where it is most needed continues to be of the utmost priority for me as Minister for Children and Youth Affairs. As part of this commitment, I have allocated significant grant funding in recent years for the creation of new childcare places in areas of need. This year, from a total budget of €6.86 million, my Department's early years and school age capital programmes allocated €4.62 million in capital funding for the creation of new childcare places. This funding was targeted specifically where evidence of demand for new places exists. The maximum grant available under the 2018 programmes was €50,000 for early years services and €20,000 for school age services. I am pleased to note that the awarding of these grants is expected to result in the creation of 2,757 new early years and school age places across 130 childcare facilities nationwide. Some €1.16 million of this was specifically awarded to community services, resulting in the creation of 628 new childcare places in 34 services.

Officials in my Department are engaged in planning for capital spending in 2019. The details of this are to be made available to childcare providers later this year. I assure the Deputy that the needs of childcare services, both community and private, are of foremost concern in the development process. Ireland benefited from much larger-scale capital investment under the equal opportunities childcare programme and the national childcare investment programme. These programmes provided individual grants of more than €1 million in value for some community services.

I am delighted to have ensured that childcare was identified as a strategic priority under the national development plan, as I mentioned to Deputy Rabbitte, with an emphasis on the later years covered by the plan. That is how large-scale capital funding will inform our early years strategy, due to be published later this year.

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