Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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Question 166: To ask the Minister for Health and Children if she will provide a breakdown of spending on the national child care investment programme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [44951/10]

Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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I have responsibility for the implementation of the National Childcare Investment Programme 2006-2010 (NCIP), which is provided for in Vote 41. The NCIP had an initial total allocation of €575m for the period 2006-2010 of which €358m was in respect of capital funding and €218m was in respect of current funding. The NCIP current funding in this period now stands at approximately €240m.

NCIP capital expenditure amounted to €3m in 2006, €15m in 2007, €80m in 2008, €52m in 2009 and it is estimated that €25m will be spent in 2010. A further €11m is expected to be spent in 2011 to complete the drawdown of NCIP capital commitments, bringing the total capital expenditure under the programme to €186m. This is expected to result in the creation of up to 25,000 new childcare places.

NCIP current expenditure amounted to approximately €2m in 2006 and €9m in 2007. With the cessation of the European Opportunities Childcare Programme (EOCP) at the end of 2007, the NCIP current allocation increased to €73.5m in 2008 of which €51m was spent on the Community Childcare Subvention Scheme (CCSS) which was introduced in January of that year. In 2009, the NCIP current allocation amounted to €79.5m of which over €58m was spent on the CCSS. In 2010, the NCIP current allocation was just over €75m of which €52m is being spent on the CCSS and its successor scheme, the broadly similar Community Childcare Subvention (CCS) scheme.

Approximately €7m of NCIP current funding will be spent in 2010 on the new Childcare Training and Employment Support (CETS) scheme which was introduced in September. The CETS scheme provides free childcare places to qualifying trainees attending certain FÁS and Vocational Education Committee (VEC) courses, and replaces the previous childcare support schemes operated by FÁS and the VECs which provided for a contributory payment towards childcare costs of €63.50 per week. Funding amounting to €3.5m, which was held by FÁS and the VECs to provide for the previous support schemes in September to December 2010, has transferred to my Office and is included in the €7m expenditure referred to.

In addition, NCIP current funding continues to support the work of the 33 City and County Childcare Committees (CCCs) and 8 Voluntary Childcare Organisations (VCOs). In 2010, €12.9m was allocated to the CCCs and €3m was allocated to the VCOs.