Dáil debates

Tuesday, 28 November 2017

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed) - Priority Questions

Early Childhood Care and Education Programmes

5:35 pm

Photo of Anne RabbitteAnne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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36. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the steps she is taking to address the shortages in ECCE places that exist in certain parts of the country; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [50554/17]

Photo of Anne RabbitteAnne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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The purpose of my question is to ask the Minister the steps she is taking to address the shortages in ECCE places in certain parts of the country; and if she will make a statement on the matter.

Photo of Katherine ZapponeKatherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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My Department has conducted an analysis of the ECCE scheme capacity and is satisfied there will be no shortfall in ECCE places for the 2017-18 programme year. It should be noted the peak number of children attending ECCE in 2016-17 was just over 120,000. The 2017-18 numbers are expected and on track to be in line with the 2016-17 uptake.

From September 2018, the ECCE programme will revert to one single entry point, in September, in a given ECCE programme year with eligible children entitled to two full years of ECCE provision. From September 2018, the number of ECCE enrolments in any given year will be around 114,000. The fact that 120,000 children were provided with ECCE places in April 2017 suggests there is sufficient capacity to deal with the lower, albeit year round number of 114,000.

As with the previous expansion of the ECCE programme, my Department is working closely with all city and county child care committees to monitor a range of scheme related issues, including capacity. In the event capacity issues emerge, we will seek to address them accordingly. Recent media statements on the issue cited the total number of children aged three to five in the population and concluded there was a capacity issue for ECCE. It did not account for the many four and five year olds already in primary school or those who opt for only one year of the ECCE programme. The conclusion that a capacity issue exists is therefore inaccurate.

Photo of Anne RabbitteAnne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister for her response. I will begin by welcoming that there is now only one entry point in the second year of the ECCE scheme. I also welcome the expansion of the second year of the ECCE scheme. Does the Minister understand where my question is coming from? It is based on a parliamentary question I put to the Department in recent weeks. The reply said there was a shortage of 17,677 spaces, if one was to look at the capacity issue. Of those, six are in the commuter belt of Dublin, which means there is a capacity issue of 8,000 spaces. The highest is in Cork county where there is a shortage of 2,260 spaces. I find it hard to believe 20,000 of those have either started school or are only taking up an ECCE scheme space for one year. What will the Minister put in place to address areas where there will be a genuine shortage of spaces? Are new grants being introduced to expand the number of ECCE spaces or to support crèches to run a model in the morning and a model in the afternoon? If there needs to be expansion in Meath, Dublin or Cork, will there be capital funding to support it?

Photo of Katherine ZapponeKatherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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I appreciate the Deputy's question and the way my Department has answered it. The issue of capacity is consistently monitored, particularly by the city and county child care committees. I am not aware of any specific capacity concerns. If the Deputy has a specific capacity concern, she should bring it to the attention of my Department and the city and county child care committees. There is ongoing monitoring and we are not concerned at this stage. The reply by the Department identified the number of three to five year olds in the population and the number of places that will be available. As I have already said, they do not necessarily correlate. There may be some whose parents choose to send them to school early rather than spending a second year in preschool.

The Deputy's other question was that if we are concerned about capacity, do we have plans for capital investment in 2018. The answer is that we do.

Photo of Anne RabbitteAnne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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I welcome that funding will become available. The Minister asked me about crèches and areas I was talking about. I was talking about Mountbellew community child care group. There is another community child care group in Kerry that I was talking about, which is looking at 20 or 30 extra spaces. As a result of streamlining the entry points and removing those in December and April, it will see a capacity issue and will need an extra room or a prefab. I saw it earlier this year in Portumna. I welcome that there will be funding mechanisms to support them if they work with the city and county child care committees.

Photo of Katherine ZapponeKatherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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One of the measures I introduced in 2016 and 2017 was to support capital development, specifically for capacity issues. My Department provided €8.4 million for its 2017 early years capital funding programme, €4 million for the 2016 early years capital funding programme and the 2017 funding was made available to providers under three strands, the largest of which, €4.2 million, went towards enabling services to provide additional child care places. I will be announcing details of the 2018 capital scheme in the very near future.