Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)

At the heart of these questions lies an opportunity to link the provision of childcare places with the provision of new housing. Childcare needs a big idea that can deliver capacity at scale and value for money. I am not interested in the big chains that can do that already but in public supply and in supporting community crèches and the providers, primarily women, who have been running our smaller, independent, local facilities for years and struggling to do so. The Government is delivering new housing but can we also ensure that we are delivering childcare places in tandem with that? The mechanism that we currently have - the childcare facilities guidelines for local authorities from 2001 - is not working effectively. For every 75 dwellings, 20 childcare places are supposed to be provided. Sometimes, new crèche buildings are included in planning, are built and are opened but sometimes they are not.

I thank the Minister for the information on the capital supports but this forms part of a bigger overhaul of the planning guidelines to ensure that those crèches are not sitting empty, like they are in my constituency, that their use is not being changed and that we see more providers being able to operate in our local communities.

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