Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

There is significant demand for school-age childcare services. I just did some calculations and I believe the vacancy rate in Cork city is about 4% which is obviously very tight. That is a clear indication of the need to provide more places. The Deputy spoke about the ad hocdevelopment of these services, which is right to a degree. The previous Minister introduced the action plan to get a higher-level view of where these services were needed and to identify how we could take the available capital funding, which will continue for the duration of the national development plan, and direct it to those places, be it for brand new facilities or by ensuring that after the school day the school hall or some other facility in the school could be used for school-age childcare. We need schools to be a bit more flexible because sometimes schools are not entirely happy with that use and we should put in some supports there.

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