John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Question 421: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the funding in 2005 for the child minders development grant. [12149/05]

John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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Question 422: To ask the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the funding provided nationwide for county child care committees in 2005. [12150/05]

Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 421 and 422 together.

Thirty-three city-county child care committees, CCCs, were established in 2001 to prepare and deliver a five year strategic plan for the development of child care services to address the specific child care needs of its own area. Each year, each CCC draws up an annual action plan to deliver its strategic plan with annual funding from the quality measure under the Equal Opportunities Childcare Programme 2000-2006, EOCP.

I have allocated funding totalling €7.6 million to the 33 CCCs for the implementation of their 2005 action plans. In addition, the CCCs received an annual funding allocation amounting to €965,000 in total in 2005 to support quality awareness training, information and networking actions specifically targeting child minders, who play a key role in the delivery of child care in Ireland.

Funding is also available under the national child minding initiative for the award of small developmental grants of up to 90% of the total cost and with a maximum grant of €630 to child minders. These are linked to the completion of a quality awareness lecture programme for child minders, delivered by the CCCs. In 2004 I made available a funding allocation of €1.89 million in total for this purpose.

While the number of participants in quality awareness lecture programme designed in tandem with the grants approached 2,600 by the end of 2004, the numbers seeking the child minder development grant has been less than anticipated, and as a consequence, the amount set aside in 2004 for this purpose has not yet been exhausted. As a result, it has not been necessary to make a further allocation yet for development grants in 2005. This element of the EOCP will be reviewed again in May-June 2005 to determine the need to make a further allocation to the CCCs for this purpose.