Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Independent)
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704. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the number of early child care providers that have closed due to financial constraints in each of the past five years and to date in 2014; the number of child care places this represents; and if he will provide a tabular breakdown of these details by area and date of closure. [27300/14]

Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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The information requested by the Deputy is not routinely collected by my Department. However, Pobal administers the Childcare Capital Programmes and the Community Childcare Subvention Programme on behalf of the Department that requires them to collect certain financial data from participating service providers. This data does not relate to all childcare service providers.

According to the information provided by Pobal, of the childcare services about which they collect data, a total of 165 services were reported to them as having closed during the period 2009 to date. 16 of the services who provided a reason for closure cited financial reasons. Details of the closed services are attached. I would like to advise the Deputy that more than 4,200 childcare providers participated in the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme during the pre-school year 2013/2014. More than 220 new providers have applied to participate in the programme from September 2014.