Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin North Central, Labour)
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89. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the area based childhood programmes that have been rolled out; her plans for further roll-out; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [53714/13]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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The Area Based Childhood (ABC) 2013-2016 is being implemented by my Department, in partnership with Atlantic Philanthropies who are co-funding the programme's total allocation of €29.7m. The programme will deliver the Programme for Government commitment to adopt an area-based approach to child poverty, drawing on best international practice and existing services to break the cycle of child poverty where it is most deeply entrenched and improve the outcomes for children and young people. The ABC programme will build on and continue much of the work of the Prevention and Early Intervention (PEIP) Programme, which was also implemented by my Department and co-funded by Atlantic Philanthropies.

50 applications to participate in the programme were received. Three of these were from the previous PEIP participants and these were evaluated and approved for entry to the programme earlier this year. The remaining 47 applications have since been evaluated with nine of these being recently approved for entry to the next, design stage of the programme. Applications were evaluated against the criteria set out in the applications process, namely Evidence of Need, Quality of the Proposal, Additionality & Sustainability, and Understanding and Capturing Outcomes, and ranked accordingly. These new areas are:

- Bray

- Ballyfermot/Dublin 10

- Clondalkin

- Dublin Docklands

- Finglas

- Grangegorman/NW Inner City

- Knocknaheeny

- Limerick

- Louth

In addition, an application from the Midlands counties has been approved to enter the design stage of the programme as part of the previous PEIP project in Darndale.

My Department, in partnership with Atlantic Philanthropies, is currently engaged in supporting successful applicants through the design stage of the programme and will be supported in this process by Pobal and the Centre for Effective Services. Plans are underway to hold an information day in January 2014 at which the next steps will be outlined. I understand that my Department will be writing to the new participants in the coming days to invite them to attend this event. While some projects are expected to advance to the final approval stage more quickly than others, I hope to see as many as possible of the projects at implementation stage before the end of this year.