Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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91. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to outline his plans to increase childcare places; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19265/24]

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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What are the Minister's general plans for increasing childcare places? Will he make a statement on the matter?

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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I touched on the matter already in answering Deputy Stanton's question.

My Department is progressing a range of actions to ensure the supply of early learning and childcare provision meets demand. Work in this area is being led by a new supply management unit I established earlier this year in my Department. A key part of the supply management unit’s remit is to develop a planning function for monitoring, analysing and forecasting of the supply and demand, similar to the forward planning unit in the Department of Education. The unit will also oversee the administration of new capital investment under the national development plan, NDP, with two strands of funding rolling out this year and next under the building blocks capacity grant. As well as this, the unit is engaging with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage to progress the updating of the 2001 planning guidelines for local authorities on early learning and childcare settings.

In addition to the work of the supply management unit, other work across my Department will increase places. Core funding, which began 2022, has proven to be effective in expanding capacity. Year 2 of the scheme provided for capacity growth of 3% across the whole childcare network, which has materialised and for year 3, which will kickstart in September of this year, there is further funding to allow for a 3% growth in overall capacity. As I mentioned when speaking to Deputy Stanton, we have been engaging with the Department of Education on the guidance it gives to schools about the use of school buildings, especially, as I said earlier, for the potential for use for after-school care to provide capacity in an area where many parents want additional services.

The national action plan for childminding is designed to allow the registration of childminders and for parents using their services to benefit from the national childcare scheme, NCS. Work on that is ongoing at the moment.

The primary focus of the building blocks capacity grant scheme, which is funded under the NDP, is to enhance capacity in the one to three year-old age group where we see some of the biggest pressures right now.

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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It would be lovely to hear the exact figures for the number of places that the Minister plans to increase by. It sounds like he has a plan, but to me and to all childminding organisations, it is complex and cumbersome. The Minister will be aware that in the Dublin area, almost 60% of providers have reported that they have severe waiting lists for childcare places. After housing, it is probably borne out statistically that this is one of the biggest political issues for most people who have children. Often both parents have to work to afford childcare. However, if they cannot get a place, they cannot keep the work and if they cannot keep the work, their rent or mortgage and God knows what else is impacted.

In my constituency, Dublin South Central, parents regularly call me and write to me begging for help. I often get on the blower to try to get places for them with no success. How will we address this problem?

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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When I started in this role, costs for parents, lack of pay for staff and sustainability for providers were the big challenges. We have managed to do a significant amount in those three areas. Now capacity is the big challenge and I recognise that. We have a plan. A dedicated unit in my Department is looking at the national situation and putting in place the various measures to support it. Some of it involves providing capital money upfront. We have €80 million this year in capital funding. We will have more in 2025 to grow out the capital schemes to support people to increase capacity, be they private or community providers. We are looking to change the planning regulations to ensure where planning permission is granted for an early years service, it is delivered. I am sure the Deputy can cite examples from her constituency of it not happening. I have seen some in mine as well. I am coming up against time. The payment of staff is important in terms of staff being available to allow providers to use the existing capacity they have. If they do not have staff, they do not have ratios and they may not be able to use all the rooms in a service.

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I am aware of all the problems individual childcare centres have in increasing capacity and keeping going. I am also aware of how poorly paid and treated many childcare workers are, albeit that improvements are taking place.

The last woman who contacted me about this prompted me to ask the question. She was stressed out of her mind about the fact that she could not get a place for her 17 month-old child. It looks like she will have to give up her job. She is a relatively young woman. She wants to keep her career. We want women and men to be out working in the workforce. We are short of workers. The whole of society benefits from that. However, she will have to give up her job because no places are available at all in Dublin South Central for one child to be minded. This is disgraceful. If we cannot increase capacity with a sense of urgency, we should look at the system by which we are trying to do it.

Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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I support what has been said. The Minister said that 3% growth is envisaged. Is that for this year and going forward annually or does he envisage it will grow at a greater pace? Will the Minister provide in tabular form later the number of childcare services that have been established, especially in my constituency? I would appreciate it. To allow me to compare, will he include the number that have closed to see whether there is a net gain or net loss?

I have two other supplementary questions. I support Deputy Gould on the Before 5 childcare centre. I am aware the Minister is looking at the possibility of capital funding for new services. The difficulty with Before 5 childcare is that the service wants to be ready for September and if we wait to allow a new plan to materialise from the Department, we might miss the boat on that.

I will also follow up on the planning permission issue that was raised. Who makes the call if a crèche or childcare facility was permitted in a development? Is it at the developer's discretion or do the community childcare facility and local authority make the call?

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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First, to Deputy Smith, there is a real sense of urgency on the issue of capacity. It is now the big challenge. The big challenge has moved from affordability because we and I, as Minister, acted over a number of budgets to deal with that issue and we have made significant progress. We have a plan. We have capital funding and engagement with other Departments on removing the mechanisms. The situation where someone potentially has to give up work because of not being able to access childcare is serious and that is what we are trying to work to address by providing additional capacity. One of the challenges of reducing the price was that more people took up childcare. That has put greater pressure on the system and we have to act to respond to that.

Where planning is granted and includes a childcare service, that is a matter of enforcement if it is not being done. We want to work with local authorities to make sure the regulations are as clear as possible so that there is no wriggle room if a developer does not want to build it. I heard what Deputies O'Sullivan and Gould said. We are working to see whether we can create a capital fund about sustainability to support existing services that are under pressure because of the age of their buildings. That is as much as I can say on that today, but I am aware of the particular circumstance of that facility.