Emer Currie (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I move:

"That Seanad Éireann:

welcomes: - the extensive commitments by the Government to address long-standing challenges in the early learning and childcare sector and to improve access, affordability, and quality of provision;

- the increase to over €1 billion per annum in State funding for the sector this year, including Core Funding, a new model which aims to improve pay and conditions for staff, capacity for parents and stability for operators, and which requires ongoing partnership and dialogue with providers in relation to funding levels;

- the significant prioritisation by the Government to reduce early learning and childcare costs for families through the National Childcare Scheme and progress to extend subsidies to childminders in providers homes;

- the work underway in advancing plans for a dedicated State agency for early learning childcare, consolidating functions currently undertaken by Pobal Early Years, Better Start and the City/County Childcare Committees, as well as the operational functions currently undertaken by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth;

- the €70 million Building Blocks Capital Programme, under the National Development Plan, designed to meet current and long-term early learning and childcare infrastructure needs with a focus on places for children from 1 to 3 years;

- the commitment to update the current planning guidelines for early learning and childcare;

- the establishment of a new Supply Management Unit in the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to undertake a more detailed analysis of supply and demand;

- housing commencement numbers for 2024, with a total of 32,121 homes commenced since the first of January to the end of May, which is 98 percent of the total number of homes constructed in 2023; recognises: - an increasing and worrying trend of waiting lists of up to three years for creche places nationally, and limited childcare options for children under one, causing stress and distress for parents, mainly impacting women and their return to work after maternity leave;

- a lack of suitable premises in appropriate locations for childcare providers as well as the high cost of acquiring and fitting out new premises, which often makes it unviable for providers to open services or expand;

- that empty childcare units, applications for change of use, and childcare facilities that are a component of planning permission but have not been built, are too common occurrences at a local level;

- that thousands of apartments in the Greater Dublin Area have been built without childcare facilities in the past five years;

- the vital link between new housing, social infrastructure and access to community services;

- the difficulties rural areas with limited development face in accessing creches;

- the 2001 Guidelines for Planning Authorities on Childcare Facilities have critical flaws, gaps, exemptions, and loopholes, leaving many communities and families without adequate access to childcare;

- the lack of a functioning forward planning system for childcare; calls for: - an effective planning and development system that will forecast, assess, and respond to childcare demand in local areas;

- the publication of new planning guidelines for local authorities on childcare facilities as promised, with the specific purpose of delivering sufficient, appropriate, and state-of-the-art childcare infrastructure for local communities across the country;

- an independent review of the current standard of 20 childcare places per 75 dwellings based on international best practice and demographic evidence nationally;

- ‘Technical Guidance’ to be provided to local authorities for each type of childcare service, similar to the Department of Education for school buildings, and mandatory in nature, to ensure childcare units are purpose-built and in compliance with all relevant regulations;

- the strengthening of roles, competence and capacity within local authorities and childcare committees in advance of the formation of a dedicated State agency for childcare;

- an audit to be conducted of empty childcare units nationally and consideration to be given to powers for the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to compel developers to make empty units available for childcare purposes:

- one-bedroom apartments to be included in calculating the need for childcare places and the closing down of current loopholes where housing can be built without childcare provision;

- the Government to develop a new State model for the acquisition of childcare facilities based on learnings from the Part V process already in place under the Planning and Development Act, which compels developers to build social and affordable housing in new developments at a reduced cost through an ‘open book’ exercise of verifiable costs; this would allow those childcare facilities to be leased back to providers at a reasonable cost thus making them more attainable for providers;

- all area-based plans to include a requirement for the co-location of childcare facilities on proposed primary and post-primary school sites and/or as part of a campus of community services."

I thank the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, for taking our motion on better planning for local childcare provision. I congratulate him on his ascension to leader of the Green Party. The Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, was in the House this morning for Committee Stage of the Planning and Development Bill 2023. This issue was raised during that debate, which I welcome. I am very much aware that delivering the proposals set out in the motion will require the efforts of both Departments, working together, not just to deliver childcare infrastructure in communities but childcare infrastructure for communities. I thank the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, for taking the lead on this today.

Our childcare supply is driven and dependent on the decisions and viability of private providers and a much smaller cohort of community-run services. It is the childcare providers themselves who respond to the need and demand for childcare in communities. The State, of course, supports them, and supports parents, with an unprecedented level of Exchequer funding, including for capacity building. The State is responsible for operational requirements and policy. Ultimately, however, we rely and depend on private and community providers, whether that be childminders working in their home, a local Montessori or a childcare facility that is part of a larger chain, to open up in our neighbourhoods and provide access to childcare and school-age care.

The State contributes to the provision of childcare infrastructure. In the motion, I acknowledge the €70 million allocated to the building blocks capital programme under the national development plan, NDP. A total of 23 projects have been provisionally approved across the country for energy upgrades and retrofitting. A new scheme worth €25 million will open in the autumn to cater for extensions and the purchase and building of community services for one- to three-year-olds. That is welcome news.

The planning system supports the delivery of childcare infrastructure. There is supposed to be a link between new development, particularly residential development, and the provision of childcare facilities. Under the 2001 guidelines for planning authorities on childcare facilities, for every 75 homes built, there is a benchmark of at least one childcare facility for 20 children. This is a really positive way of linking the building of homes with the building of communities and the provision of essential social infrastructure. However, that level of provision simply is not happening. For every 75 homes being built, we are not seeing childcare facilities being built or opened.

That is a consequence of exemptions and loopholes in the guidelines, gaps in our planning process and financial pressures on providers, who cannot afford to build the facilities. Instead of what should be a very effective funnel for the delivery of childcare infrastructure in communities, the provision of childcare facilities is marked by inconsistency across communities, in local authority areas and throughout the country.Housing supply is increasing, which is positive for families. However, the more it increases and the more homes that are built or commenced, and 32,000 have been commenced so far this year, the more we are missing out on the opportunity for childcare supply and the longer we deal with the problems of childcare shortages. Our planning laws and guidelines need an urgent overhaul and we need a robust forward planning and development process to provide sufficient childcare spaces for parents, families and communities, and to support our hardworking providers and educators.

I have put together a report that draws on case studies from Dublin West but I believe they are symptomatic of issues in other counties too. There is variance across the country depending on the local authority and county or city childcare committee. I will go through some of those because I think the individual case studies help to build the picture.

I recall both the Minister and I raising the issue of one particular empty crèche unit in Bracken Park, Carpenterstown, with Fingal County Council a long time ago. That crèche unit consisted of two three-storey shell and core units, built ten years ago, in the same style as the houses beside them. One has been granted a change of use to a house while the other still lies vacant. There have been several applications to change the second unit to a house. Potential providers say it is too expensive and awkward a building to buy and kit out for regulations and make work as a crèche. That building is going to waste as either a home or as a crèche.

There is another example in Barnwell, Dublin 15, which also consists of two core and shell units that are identical to the houses next door except for the presence of a set-down area. It was completed in June 2022. The developer applied for a change of use to two houses six months later. Potential providers say it is at the back of estate and difficult to access. It is economically unviable for them for them to buy and fit out and lends itself more to a house than crèche.

Rokeby Park crèche was empty for the four years from 2018 to 2022. It eventually opened as a crèche but is now closing to become an autism preschool. It is, of course, good news that an autism preschool is opening but the reason the crèche is closing is because of issues with the recruitment and retention of staff. There is still demand for childcare in the area.

A childcare unit was built in Rathborne Park in Ashtown to serve 250 homes. It was empty for five years until it sold recently. A childcare unit at Phoenix Park racecourse with 750 homes was empty for nearly five years until going sale agreed recently. Coincidently, both of those crèches went on the market or sold at the same time as questions were being asked about them, which may or may not have had something to do with it. I know from talking to providers that it was challenging for them to view one of those units over the years despite numerous attempts.

There is also the Windmill development, which was a strategic housing development. A total of 211 apartments were built for rent, including 68 one-bed apartments and 133 two-bed apartments. No crèche was provided because there was a Giraffe childcare facility close by, even though Giraffe and other childcare facilities in the immediate area have extensive waiting lists. Because Giraffe was nearby, the development was exempted from the requirement of building a crèche.

In Castlefield Hall in Clonsilla, all 102 homes are finished but the builder has said they are not going to build the crèche that was included in planning.

A crèche at St. Joseph's development, which adjoins Clonsilla and Hansfield, was supposed to have been built three years ago for 224 homes. It was advertised in the brochure when the houses and apartments went on sale but no crèche was built. The developer recently got permission to push out building the crèche to the next phase of the Hansfield strategic development zone, leaving all the families that bought there three years ago without childcare provision.

As I previously mentioned, the 2001 childcare facilities guidelines for planning authorities set out a benchmark of at least one childcare facility per 75 dwellings in new housing developments. Those guidelines recommend those services take approximately 20 children. In Dublin West over the past five years, in both the Fingal County Council and Dublin City Council areas, according to the Central Statistics Office, CSO, we have seen approximately 4,000 new homes built and nowhere near that level of childcare provision. Of course, some crèches have been opened subject to these guidelines. When I looked back on all the planning applications for new developments of more than 75 dwellings that have been built in Dublin West over the past ten years, I found six up and running. We need all of these childcare places to be accessible to the public. This is a concentrated area, as the Minister know, where both providers and parents are crying out for suitable premises and places. It points to a failure within the planning system, starting with critical inadequacies in the 2001 guidelines. There are exemptions for one-bedroom apartments, so while more are being built, developers do not need to factor them in when calculating the need for childcare as if single people or young couples do not have babies. Unfortunately, the guidelines only apply to individual planning applications and not multiple developments of fewer than 75 dwellings in a new residential area. Therefore, whole communities can be left without childcare and with no regard to services for the overall population.

Another loophole is that the developer can claim that a new facility is not required as there are childcare providers already operating in the area even though they may have extensive waiting lists. The developer only has to provide a shell of a building, often resulting in buildings that are not fit for purpose in their location, size, layout, brief and regulatory compliance. They can then require substantial additional expenditure, making it financially unviable for a childcare provider to take them. Unsurprisingly, developers see them as a potential liability, which is incentivising them to seek a change-of-use strategy or to sit on them as assets.

There are also major gaps in the planning process. The national planning framework recognises the importance of childcare provision but there are no mandatory referrals for assessing childcare requirements in new residential developments and communities as there is for road infrastructure, water services, schools and even aviation flight paths. The local authority might consult the local childcare committee, but this is on an ad hocbasis and varies across the country. The local authorities and city and county child care committees, CCCs, are not skilled up or resourced to take on that responsibility at the moment.

It is about childcare infrastructure in the community and for the community. There must be an understanding of what is required in specific areas, whether that is early childhood care and education, ECCE, school-age care or baby rooms. We need that local knowledge. The process is without a robust local evidence-based assessment and is skewed by the input of the developer. That has to change.

I know the Minister agrees. We have a planning system that does not prioritise childcare as the essential community service it is. Even though the guidelines have a credible overall approach to linking childcare provision with the provision of new homes, there is not a functional process to deliver them or deliver for the needs of the area. As the Minister knows, this is not the first time I and others in this House have raised the need for reform with the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage. Both have said that updated planning guidelines for childcare facilities in draft form should be open for public consultation in 2024, which is really welcome. I hope the Minister can give us an update in that regard. The problem is that the longer it takes to fix, the more opportunities we miss to ensure the delivery of childcare places keeps pace with the upturn in housing delivery not just for those communities but for the childcare infrastructure deficit we already have. Parents, primarily mothers, want to get back to work but do not know if they are going to be able to secure a childcare place. Providers who want to set up new services or expand their services are left without suitable and affordable premises. They deserve a supportive environment for the sector.

In recent answers the Minister has given, I have heard some positive news about his Department developing a planning function and a supply management unit to look at supply in a nuanced and specific way. I would appreciate an update in that regard and would like to know how that matches up with the roles of local authorities and childcare committees on the ground.

The recommendations are based on the learnings from the report.The Government should develop a new model for the State to acquire childcare facilities built by developers which could then be leased back to providers at a reasonable cost. This is based on what we are already doing in the Part V process under the Planning and Development Act, which compels developers to build social and affordable housing in new developments at a reduced cost through an open book exercise of verifiable costs. This would mean that childcare would be included and built at cost when new developments are built. The State would then take this asset and lease it back to the providers at a reduced cost, helping them in the invaluable work they do.

All developments over a certain size should contribute to childcare infrastructure through construction, a financial contribution or building or providing it elsewhere. Councillors throughout the country want flexibility. They want to be able to work with developers, so that if a childcare facility is not needed in one estate but there is a unit elsewhere in a more populated location, there could be as swap. A similar approach kicks in Part V where there are nine dwellings or more. All of these developments contribute to the social and affordable housing stock.

The required scale and type of childcare facility for an area should be identified during pre-planning consultations, through a mandatory and strengthened role for the local authority and childcare committees. An approved housing body would be able to guide or work with the local authority on what type of units are required. This could be made part of the pre-planning process. The planning functions of the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Youth and Integration and a future childcare State agency should be built up so they are ready to take on these roles and can work together from the bottom up and the top down.

We must ensure that all childcare units are purpose-built and in compliance with all relevant regulations through the publication of mandatory technical guidance, similar to what the Department of Education does. I could not believe it when I spoke to local authorities and they told me they did not have this information. The standard of 20 childcare places per 75 dwellings should be independently reviewed, based on international best practice and demographic evidence from Ireland.

We should put an end to exemptions for one-bedroom apartments and close down the loopholes whereby hundreds and thousands of apartments can be built without any consideration given to childcare provision. We also need to act seriously on having a campus of community services for new areas and new school sites.