Seanad debates

Tuesday, 2 December 2014

Adjournment Matters

Child Care Services Provision

6:00 pm

Photo of James ReillyJames Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Bhí mé ag caint leis an Seanadóir an tseachtain seo caite mar gheall ar seo. The Manor Childcare Centre is a community-based not-for-profit facility, which has provided child care services for the local community since 2008. Community not-for-profit child care services have an important role to play in the provision of child care services, particularly for disadvantaged families. There are in the region of 900 community services providing a range of child care services to communities throughout the country. Many of these services, including the Manor Childcare Centre, were built with capital funding provided by the State.

The Department of Children and Youth Affairs supports a number of targeted child care programmes that assist parents with the cost of child care. This funding is provided directly to child care services, both community and private, that are participating in the programmes and have children enrolled who satisfy the programmes' eligibility criteria. Annual funding allocations under the programmes are based on a year which begins each September and ends in August of the following year.

The Manor Childcare Centre participates in the three major support programmes implemented by the Department of Children and Youth Affairs and significant funding has been provided to this service in recent years. In the year September 2013 to August 2014, funding totalling €47,800 was provided to the service for the delivery of the universal free pre-school year under the early childhood care and education programme. The enrolment figures for this academic year, September 2014 to June 2015, indicate that funding in the current year will be in the region of €63,000, which is a considerable increase.

The training and employment child care programme provides funding to support eligible parents returning to the workforce or engaging in training and education courses. For the last year, funding totalling €39,700 was allocated to the Manor Childcare Centre to provide for parents who qualified for support under the programme. To date, the enrolment figures for qualifying parents seeking child care in this facility suggest that the funding generated under the programme may be considerably less than in the last year. However, it is difficult to project with accuracy the final funding figure, as it is dependent on the number of appropriate job and training opportunities that may emerge in the area and the number of parents who qualify for support under the programme.

Funding totalling €72,600 was provided to the service in the 2013-2014 year under the community child care subvention programme, which supports low income and disadvantaged families. The projected overall funding to the service for the 2014-15 year will be determined when the parental return process is completed later this year. The community child care subvention programme provides support to eligible parents to meet the weekly cost of child care, with the maximum weekly support being €95 per week for a full day care place. The parent, or in some cases Tusla, would be expected to provide the balance of the cost of the weekly child care provision.

In addition to the support provided under the programmes implemented by the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, which I have just outlined, further funding was provided directly to the service by Tusla to help ensure the service was able to address the considerable disadvantage experienced by some parents using the facility. I understand that this strand of funding will be in the order of €5,000 in 2015.

My Department has in place advisory support to providers when issues like this arise from time to time. This advice is provided through the local child care committee structure and nationally by Pobal. I had the pleasure of meeting the new combined Waterford City and County Childcare Committee at its initial meeting. Pobal and Waterford Childcare Committee are both engaging with the Manor Childcare Centre in an effort to find a resolution to the difficulties the service is currently faced with. Both organisations have considerable experience of supporting services to find solutions to sustainability, governance and management issues, and they will make every effort to support the Manor Childcare Centre. My officials are in touch with Pobal regarding the centre and will continue to be informed of progress in finding a solution to the issues involved. This is an important service to the people of Waterford, to the children in particular, and it is one that Senator Maurice Cummins has brought to my attention, as has Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Paudie Coffey.

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