Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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Question 263: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform if his attention has been drawn to the fact that the Dublin city child care committee has undertaken to establish five local child care resource centres, one for each of the five council areas of Dublin City Council, and that the Rathmines information and community services centre submitted a proposal to establish and provide this service, only to be informed that the proposal could not be funded due to the fact that the financial allocation for 2005 was insufficient, despite the fact that the proposal submitted was acceptable to the Dublin city child care committee and that the only barrier was the availability of cash; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [8273/05]

Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)
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The Dublin city child care committee is one of the 33 city and county child care committees, CCCs, that were established as part of the quality measure under the equal opportunities child care programme, EOCP, to develop child care at local level. Including its 2005 allocation, Dublin city child care committee has received allocations totalling €1.55 million in EOCP funding since the start of the programme.

Funding for the Dublin city child care committee has increased in line with inflation to €344,000 for 2005 and this has been supplemented by funding of €100,000 in 2005 for its locally focused initiatives and by funding of €70,000 for the childminders initiative. I understand that Dublin city child care committee has appealed this level of funding and the appeal is under review. Pending this review, it would be premature of me to comment further at this time.