Seymour Crawford (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Question 304: To ask the Minister for Health and Children her views on whether national schools should set up facilities to provide for the early childhood care and education scheme in spite of the fact that child care facilities funded by the State are less than half a kilometre away; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [3560/10]

Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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I have responsibility for the implementation of the free Pre-School Year in Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) scheme which commenced earlier this month. I also have responsibility for the National Childcare Investment Programme 2006-2010 (NCIP) under which capital grants were provided to community and commercial childcare providers to develop and refurbish childcare facilities to meet the needs of parents and their children.

Some 27,000 additional childcare places are expected to be created under the NCIP. This builds on the 45,000 childcare places created under the EU co-funded Equal Opportunities Childcare Programme 2000-2006 (EOCP). In order to qualify for capital grant funding under the NCIP, applicants were required to demonstrate a local need for the service proposed, including non-displacement of existing services in the area. Applications were processed in the first instance by the local City and County Childcare Committee who provided detailed assessments of each project and the extent to which the funding proposed would address identified local childcare needs. The NCIP capital programme closed to new applicants in April 2009.

In addition to capital funding, the NCIP also provides support funding under the Community Childcare Subvention Scheme (CCSS) to enable community childcare services to charge reduced fees to disadvantaged and low income working parents. In December 2009, the Government announced its decision to introduce a follow-on scheme to the CCSS with effect from September 2010.

While the NCIP is an investment programme to develop the childcare infrastructure and provide targeted support to disadvantaged parents using community services, the ECCE scheme is a universal scheme to provide a free pre-school year to all children before they enter primary school. All pre-school services operating in the State are free to apply to participate, including pre-school services established by the Boards of Management of primary schools or located on school grounds. It is not possible, therefore, nor would it be considered appropriate to limit the ECCE scheme to existing services pre-school services or to discriminate against a particular category of provider.