Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

804. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the number of City and County Childcare Committees in the State and their role and annual cost for each year from 2001 to date in 2014; if he will outline in tabular form each committee by geographical location, the size of the child population they serve and the cost of funding each committee. [32605/14]

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The City and County Childcare Committees (CCCs) were established in 2001 to advance the provision of childcare facilities in their local areas. They comprise local representatives from the statutory, community and voluntary sectors, social partners, childcare providers and parents.

The role of the CCCs was expanded under the National Childcare Investment Programme to enable greater flexibility and responsiveness to local needs, and they had a key role in the development of local childcare infrastructure, quality standards, training and information. More recently, CCCs have been increasingly dedicated to locally managing administrative processes associated with the national childcare programmes (the Community Childcare Subvention programme, the Early Childhood Care and Education programme and the Childcare Education and Training Support programme). They also support the performance and sustainability of services in their respective areas.

Each CCC receives annual funding from the Department of Children and Youth Affairs. The Department was required to find savings of 8% in the overall Childcare Committees budget over the two years 2013 and 2014. In allocating the funding, the objective was to seek to more closely reflect the early education and childcare landscape within each area, and therefore reductions were not applied on a flat-rate basis as had been the case in previous years. For 2013, the reductions applied to CCCs ranged from 0% to 9%, based on an analysis undertaken by Pobal on behalf of the Department which took account of a number of factors, including the number of children aged 0-12 in the CCC’s catchment area, to arrive at a weighting for each CCC.

The Department of Children and Youth Affairs was established in 2011. The following table shows the funding provided from 2011-2014 and the number of children in the catchment areas derived from the National Population Census 2011.