Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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Question 47: To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if she will outline the cutbacks to the community child-care subvention programme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [30306/11]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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The Community Childcare Subvention Scheme (CCSS) was introduced in January 2008 under the National Childcare Investment Programme (NCIP) to enable community not-for-profit childcare service to provide childare at reduced rates to disadvantaged and low income families. Under the CCSS, community services were required to make an annual return to the Childcare Directorate which recorded the actual level of disadvantage among parents using their service and the level of service being used.

In Budget 2010, the Minister for Finance announced that the CCSS would be succeeded by a follow-on programme, the Community Childcare Subvention (CCS) programme, with effect from September 2010 along with a new Childcare Education and Training (CETS) programme. The new CCS programme continues to provide support funding to community childcare services based on the level of service reported by them and maintains and improves the provision for disadvantaged and low income families. The CCS has a stronger focus on low income working parents and also continues the policy of tapered withdrawal of the subvention to assist parents moving from unemployment back into the workforce. The programme is demand led, and there has been no decrease in the rates of funding in the programme since its introduction last year.

Some 900 community services throughout the State are participating in the CCS programme. Services recently made their 2011/12 return, and the entitlements of individual parents are currently being assessed by the Department of Social Protection. The number of parents claiming support in this return indicates that the level of subvention under the programme is likely to rise in the 2011/2012 year.