Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)

I want to come back to the State-led facilities, which is a significant move. The Minister talked about looking at areas of unmet need.

I understand some scoping was carried out within the Minister’s Department in terms of where that unmet need is. To provide one example, which I have given here before, an analysis was carried out with the family resource centre in Boyle, County Roscommon. That analysis found that there are 20 childcare places per 1,043 children for Boyle and its catchment area. A total of 77% of children aged between zero and four years of age have no access to a childcare place. They would have liked, through the building blocks scheme, to purchase an existing building in the town. The limitations of the building blocks scheme - we have discussed this before - in that it applies to existing providers and to purchasing or building new premises only, are locking out a lot when it comes to building capacity. There are fine buildings in towns like Boyle that could be used for a service rather than lying derelict. Will the Minister look at the building blocks scheme and its limitations?

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