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

In his initial presentation and in his subsequent intervention, I heard the Deputy make the point that he has concerns about current capacity in his constituency as well as outlining the implications for future capacity of plans to expand housing, etc. To look a bit more at current capacity and unmet needs, one of the ways the Department gets its information, which is perhaps different from the Department of Education and Skills, on which I take the Deputy's point and at which I will look, has to do with the city or county childcare committees. It is the childcare committees that are in touch with local childcare providers. I am keen to avoid having an area in which there is a significant level of unmet need even currently. That is what I usually say and if there is a real problem, the providers should go to the childcare committees. If the Deputy has specific concerns, he can come directly to me. My Department has been fairly good at trying to be responsive and flexible in finding ways to provide support. The Deputy must accept at the same time that the physical capacity for expansion must exist in terms of capital, and I tried to answer some of those questions, as well as the capacity among providers, with reference to which we assess the quality. While future needs are an issue as well, some of the issues with current capacity relate to the amount of money that is available to respond. That money is limited although it is growing. That gets to the Deputy's question about the future. It is really important to identify those zones that are coming up and the incredible increase in capacity that will be needed. We are aware of that. One of things I did not mention in the initial reply was that we had secured in the NDP funding commitment from 2023 to 2028 a significant amount of €250 million. We will follow a similar course in determining future needs to the one we have followed before.

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