Results 221-240 of 19,925 for speaker:Norma Foley

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Departmental Meetings (10 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: The 2001 Planning Guidelines for Local Authorities on Early Learning and Childcare Settings were issued under section 28 of the Planning and Development Act 2000. The Guidelines are intended to ensure a consistency of approach throughout the country to the treatment of applications in respect to the land use planning aspects of early learning and childcare provision, for relevant planning...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Shared Services (10 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: Work is progressing to develop a data sharing agreement between the Department of Children, Disability and Equality, Better Start, and the National Council for Special Education (NCSE). This agreement will formalise the sharing of data between Better Start and the NCSE for the purpose of assisting in the planning of educational provision for children moving from an early learning and care...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Departmental Funding (10 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: Core Funding was introduced in September 2022. The Scheme is designed to improve affordability for parents through the introduction of fee management and contractual requirements on providers to offer the National Childcare Scheme and/or the ECCE programme. The Scheme aims to improve quality through better pay and conditions for the workforce by supporting agreement on Employment...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Departmental Funding (10 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: The Building Blocks Extension Grant Scheme was launched on 4th November 2024. The closing date for applications was 30th January. A total of 78 applications were received. These applications came from a variety of locations across the country. In May, I announced the 49 applications which will be progressing to the next stage of the process. These 49 applications come from a mix of...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Departmental Funding (10 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: The Building Blocks Extension Grant Scheme was launched on 4th November 2024, with €25m allocated to the scheme. The closing date for applications was 30th January. A total of 78 applications were received. These applications came from a variety of locations across the country. In May, I announced the 49 applications which will be progressing to the next stage of the process,...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Departmental Inquiries (10 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: Improving access to quality and affordable Early Learning and Care and School Age Childcare is a key priority of Government. Early learning and childcare capacity is increasing. Data from the Annual Early Years Sector Profile 2023/24 shows that the estimated number of enrolments increased by approximately 19% from the 2021/22 programme year. Core Funding application data shows that...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Childcare Services (10 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: Improving access to quality and affordable Early Learning and Care and School Age Childcare is a key priority of Government. Early learning and childcare capacity is increasing. Data from the Annual Early Years Sector Profile 2023/24 shows that the estimated number of enrolments increased by approximately 19% from the 2021/22 programme year. Core Funding application data shows that between...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Departmental Data (10 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: The Deputy has requested the cost of a €1 reduction in average weekly costs of full-day childcare. This Department does not hold individualised fee data for parents as these are local agreements between parents and providers; instead a reduction in the average cost to parents is examined. The median weekly fee for full-day childcare in Ireland was €190 for the 23/24...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Departmental Schemes (10 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: The Building Blocks Extension Grant Scheme was launched on 4th November 2024. The closing date for applications was 30th January. A total of 78 applications were received. These applications came from a variety of locations across the country. 49 of these applications are progressing to the next stage of the grant process. From Sligo, there was one application received, which was...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Departmental Schemes (10 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: The Building Blocks Extension Grant Scheme was launched on 4th November 2024. The closing date for applications was 30th January. A total of 78 applications were received. These applications came from a variety of locations across the country. In May, I announced the 49 applications which will be progressing to the next stage of the process, with a total project value of €23.2m. ...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Departmental Schemes (10 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: The Building Blocks Extension Grant Scheme was launched on 4th November 2024. The closing date for applications was 30th January. A total of 78 applications were received. These applications came from a variety of locations across the country. 29 of these applications were unsuccessful or deemed ineligible as outlined below. County No. of unsuccesful...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Departmental Schemes (10 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: The Building Blocks Extension Grant Scheme was launched on 4th November 2024. The closing date for applications was 30th January. A total of 78 applications were received. These applications came from a variety of locations across the country. Of the 78 applications received, 11 were deemed ineligible and therefore did not progress to the appraisal stage. Of these ineligible...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Departmental Programmes (10 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: I propose to take Questions Nos. 1216 and 1217 together. The Programme for Government commits to reducing the cost of early learning and childcare to €200 per month per child. This will build on significant progress in affordability that has already been made through a number of existing Schemes. The Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Programme, which provides two...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Departmental Funding (10 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: Improving access to quality and affordable Early Learning and Care and School Age Childcare is a key priority of Government. The National Development Plan identifies access to quality early learning and childcare as a component of National Strategic Objective 10. Early learning and childcare capacity is increasing. Data from the Annual Early Years Sector Profile 2023/24 shows that the...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Departmental Funding (10 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: The Programme for Government sets out the ambition to work with schools to host before and after-school childcare in school buildings as well as planning the development of State-led early learning and childcare facilities in tandem with the school building programme, specifically referencing Irish medium naíonraí. Last year, the Department of Education published Procedures on...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Childcare Services (10 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: Improving access to quality and affordable Early Learning and Care and School Age Childcare is a key priority of Government. Early learning and childcare capacity is increasing. Data from the Annual Early Years Sector Profile 2023/24 shows that the estimated number of enrolments increased by approximately 19% from the 2021/22 programme year. Core Funding application data shows that...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Childcare Services (10 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: As the subject matter of the Deputy's question relates to an operational matter for Tusla, I have referred the matter to them for a direct reply.

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Departmental Schemes (10 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: The National Childcare Scheme provides subsidies – both universal and targeted - to reduce the costs to parents for children to participate in early learning and childcare. The Childcare Support Act 2018, which provides a statutory basis for the National Childcare Scheme, specifies that only Tusla-registered providers are eligible to participate in the Scheme. The limitation of public...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Departmental Schemes (10 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: Significant investment is being made by my Department to address affordability of early learning and childcare through the National Childcare Scheme (NCS). The NCS has undergone a number of enhancements in recent years to further reduce the cost of early learning and childcare for families. These include the extension of the universal subsidy to all children under 15 and two increases to the...

Written Answers — Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth: Departmental Programmes (10 Jun 2025)

Norma Foley: ECCE is a free two-year pre-school programme available to all children within the eligible age range. ECCE is a play-based learning programme. The programme runs from September to June each year, aligned with the primary school calendar. ECCE is not mandatory, but is very successful, with an estimated 96% of children in the eligible age range attending. The estimated number of eligible...