Emer Currie (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for being here. While childcare is primarily the responsibility of the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, there could be a planning solution to the serious shortage of childcare places in local communities. It will not fix everything but it is the kind of change we need to see.

The childcare facilities guidelines for planning authorities from 2001 are in place to steer local planning authorities such as Fingal County Council on the provision of childcare facilities for local communities. However, the guidelines are not delivering the quality and affordable childcare places in communities that desperately need them. The current planning guidelines stipulate a benchmark of at least one childcare facility per 75 dwellings in new housing developments and it is recommended that services look after approximately 20 children. That is reasonable and would have gone a long way to avoiding the problems we have. What is not reasonable are the grounds on which developers or builders can get around those requirements.The first ground is the number of studio or single-bed apartments in the development - as if people in one-bedroom apartments do not have babies. There is also an exception if there are childcare facilities in adjoining developments, even though they might be full or may not take into account the types of childcare people need. There might be an ECCE provider but it might not have all-day care. These guidelines do not take into consideration the nuance that is required.

What is also not reasonable is when childcare facilities are required under planning and they are built but are not opened. There are numerous examples of this in Dublin West. We would not let social housing sit idle like this when there is a community and social need so why are we doing it for childcare? Not only that but some childcare providers in my area are ready, willing and able to open new services, including in the units that were planned and built for childcare, but they cannot get a call back from the builder or vendor. Some of these units have been sitting idle for years while families suffer from a lack of childcare and then the builder invariably applies for a change of use. Developers also seek to postpone childcare to a later phase of the development and maybe use a bigger unit, which limits the kind of childcare provider it might be suitable for and means the planning authority has less leverage to make sure the developer does it. Some of the buildings that are built are not economically viable for providers or they might be just shy of what is required under regulation. I know from talking to planning authorities that they have to battle with builders and developers to provide childcare facilities. They want them to do it. The same thing is happening under strategic development zones even though the point of an SDZ is to make sure community services and housing come together in new developments. By tightening up the planning system, we could stop this dodging and dithering.

I reached out to our 30 county childcare committees, which try to match children and families with services and engage childcare services about possibilities for expansion. Under the same guidelines, county development plans and local area plans are to have policies in relation to childcare provision, including consultation and participation with county childcare committees. I reached out to all 30 and 16 of them came back to me. All but one said there was not enough engagement with their local authority on the delivery of childcare places. Only six of those 16 had contributed towards the recent county development plans and every single one of them said supply was not meeting demand, in particular from birth to ECCE preschool. How do we match demand and supply if no one is responsible for overseeing the delivery of the different types of childcare needed locally? How do we do it if no one is actually matching demand with supply and if the system of delivery is this ad hoc? The system needs to change.