Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Question 330: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the way in which he perceives the development of child care financial support or other facilities in the future in view of the economic necessity for both parents to work outside the home; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7766/05]

Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)
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This Government remains firmly committed to supporting working parents with their child care needs through increased capacity, choice and service quality. These aims are the hallmark of the Government's child care strategy. To this end considerable progress has already been achieved in terms of increasing the supply of centre based child care places and in enhancing the awareness of quality issues among childminders while affording financial support towards the costs of child rearing through child benefit which has increased very significantly over the past seven years.

The Deputy will be aware that there have been significant improvements in the provision of supports for the development of child care over the last number of years. Child care was identified as an investment priority under the National Development Plan 2000-2006. This was a direct response to the recommendations of the expert working group on child care established under Partnership 2000 to develop a strategy for the development and delivery of child care to support parents in employment, education and training.

The current equal opportunities child care programme, a seven-year programme, has an equal opportunities and social inclusion perspective and facilitates the further development and expansion of child care facilities to address the needs of parents, in reconciling their child care needs with their participation in employment, education and training. It aims to increase the supply of centre based child care places by 55% by the end of the programme.

The programme also has a focus on many of the quality issues which were identified in the child care strategy and aims to ensure that there is a co-ordinated approach to the delivery of child care services throughout the country. Since it was launched in 2000, the funding for the programme for the 2000-2006 period has increased from €317 million to €499.3 million or by 57%, the most recent increase being €50 million in budget 2005. The multi-annual capital envelopes announced that day also included the injection of a further €40 million in additional capital funding into child care between the end of the programme and 2009.

It is expected that the total funding committed under the programme to date will lead to the creation of 33,946 new child care places and will support another 29,556 existing places. Of the new child care places being created, 20,500 places were already in place by June 2004, an increase of 36% in the supply of child care places in four short years. These new places offer parents greater access to child care throughout the country as they balance their work and family needs.

As I mentioned previously, child benefit is the main fiscal instrument through which support is provided to parents with dependent children, and this support is provided to all parents irrespective of income and employment status. In his budget 2005 statement, the Minister for Finance announced further increases of €10 per month to €141.60 per month for the first two children and €12 per month to €177.30 per month for third and subsequent child from April 2005. This means that over the period since 1997, monthly child benefit has almost quadrupled. This level of increase is unprecedented and delivers on the Government's objective of providing support for children generally while offering real choice to all parents in relation to the care of their children. One of the main advantages of this approach is that, whereas tax relief would be of little or no benefit to those with low incomes, the provision of support for parents through the child benefit route means equality of treatment for all recipients.

Further measures on child care are being provided by the Government in a range of different ways and I outline a number of examples for the Deputy's information as follows. In 2001, the Department of Finance allocated €12.7 million capital expenditure for the provision of up to 15 Civil Service crèches for the children of Government employees. Five crèches are in operation and a further crèche opened in January 2005. Proposals for additional creches are being considered. In March 2001, the IDA launched a scheme to provide for the creation of high quality, workplace child care facilities in IDA Ireland business parks around the country. Four of these have opened, with another under construction and a sixth at contract stage. Since the start of 2002, the city and county enterprise boards have approved funding of over €1.6 million to 153 child care centres across the country. This funding comprises mainly staffing grants, with a small number of capital grants available. Capital allowances for capital expenditure on the construction, extension and refurbishment of a building, which is used for the purpose of providing a pre-school service or similar service, and there is also an exemption on the usual benefit-in-kind provisions for employees who enjoy free or subsidised child care facilities provided by their employers. In such circumstances, the employer must be wholly or partly responsible for both financing and managing the child care facility.

As can be seen, this Government's record in providing enhanced child care supports is without parallel and I am confident that we are moving rapidly to ensure that there are quality services available to parents throughout the country.