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

This is an issue the Deputy has brought to me regularly.

It touches on what Deputy Dillon spoke about earlier regarding capacity.

Some €69 million has been allocated between 2023 and 2025 to the early learning and childcare sectors under the revised national development plan. This will enable significant capital investment in early learning and childcare across three pillars. Pillar 1 is the improvement grant, pillar 2 is the capacity grant and pillar 3 is the innovation grant. The improvement grant was offered this year and is now closed. Under this pillar, €9 million was allocated earlier this year in grants ranging from €35,000 to €75,000 for either energy upgrades or retrofit projects. Work is currently under way on the design and delivery of pillars 2 and 3, which have a combined allocation of €20 million in 2024, growing to €40 million in 2025.

The capacity grant will be available to both community and private providers to fund an expansion of existing services in areas of under supply. Funding will also be provided to support the delivery of new services, where they are most needed.

The innovation grant will pilot a range of innovative initiatives, such as outdoor early learning and childcare services. A working group, comprising officials from my Department, representatives of the city and county childcare committees and Pobal, has been established to oversee the design and delivery of pillar 2. The group is conducting a needs analysis, which will identify areas of unmet need, by geographical area and by age cohort.

I hope to be in a position to provide more information on the capacity grant in the coming weeks. In addition to capital funding, as I mentioned to Deputy Dillon, the mere introduction of core funding has created expansion in terms of capacity. That can be seen in the €28 million allocated in year two. We are allowing for a 3% growth in overall capacity. Extra money has been put in to recognise that by creating core funding we are going to grow the number of places.

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