Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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227. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if children attending new community child care services are eligible for the childcare subvention, subject to the normal terms; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [15840/14]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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The Community Childcare Subvention (CCS) programme which is implemented by my Department provides funding to community childcare not-for-profit services to enable them to provide quality childcare at reduced rates to disadvantaged and low income working parents. The programme is also accessible to parents who have relatively average incomes on the basis of their entitlement to hold a GP visit card.

Community childcare services must be in contract with my Department in order to participate in the CCS programme. However, because of the current budgetary situation no new applications for entry into the CCS programme by service providers are being considered at this time.

Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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228. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs if there are any capital grants available to community child care facilities to improve their premises and add extra spaces and capacity to them; the details of such assistance; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [15841/14]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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Capital funding in the region of €420 million was provided to community and commercial childcare providers in the period 2000 to 2008 for the refurbishment and development of childcare facilities under the Equal Opportunities Childcare Programme (EOCP) and the National Childcare Investment Programme (NCIP). Because of the economic difficulties it has not been possible to provide any substantial capital funding to support developments in the childcare sector since 2009.

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 allocate further capital funding to childcare providers for the refurbishment of childcare facilities, I do not expect that this funding will be sufficient to provide for any large scale developments.