Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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186. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if she is proposing any large-scale capital grants for child care, especially for the community sector. [7166/14]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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Considerable capital funding was made available to community and commercial mainstream childcare providers for the development and refurbishment of childcare facilities under the National Childcare Investment Programme (NCIP) 2006-2010, and previously under the Equal Opportunities Childcare Programme (EOCP). Because of the economic situation, a review of capital expenditure was undertaken in 2009 and following this a decision was taken not to approve any further capital grant applications under the NCIP programme.

I did secure capital funding totalling €6m in Budget 2012 to provide for the refurbishment of services in which substantial Government capital and support funding had already been invested. I was also successful in securing €2.75m in capital funding in Budget 2013 to support the ongoing improvement of established childcare services participating in one or more of the childcare support programmes implemented by my Department.

While I hope to be in a position to provide further capital funding to childcare providers, I do not expect to be in a position to provide capital grants which for large scale developments.