Pat Deering (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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701. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs his plans to address the issue of inequality between community and private child care facilities in the forthcoming budget. [30942/15]

James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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The State promoted the development of the childcare infrastructure by means of considerable capital investment in the period between 1998 and 2008 during which approximately €425 million was invested in the provision of quality childcare services. This investment was provided to address the increasing demand for childcare services resulting from the rapid expansion of the Irish economy and the increased participation of women in the workforce. The majority of this investment was provided to the community/not-for-profit childcare sector with the emphasis on ensuring that parents in disadvantaged communities that were not served by private childcare providers had access to quality and affordable childcare services.

To ensure that these childcare facilities, some of which have been providing services now for almost twenty years, are in a position to continue to deliver quality childcare services, it is necessary that the infrastructure is satisfactorily maintained. It is for this reason that the greater portion of recent capital funding has been directed to community/ not-for-profit childcare services.

The Community Childcare Subvention (CCS) programme is implemented by this Department with funding provided to community/ not-for-profit childcare services to enable them to provide childcare at reduced rates to low income and disadvantaged families. In excess of €40 million is provided annually by my Department to support the CCS programme and this enables the parents of some 25,000 children to avail of affordable childcare. In the region of 900 community/not-for-profit childcare services participate in the CCS programme and they qualify for funding on the basis of the level of service they provide and the profile of the parents benefiting from their service. Private childcare services are currently not eligible to participate in this programme.

In the region of €260 million is provided annually by my Department to support a range of childcare support programmes. Almost €220 million of this funding is available to childcare providers, both community/ not-for-profit and private, with for example more than 3,000 private childcare providers participating in the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme which has annual funding of more than €170 million.

The recent Report of the Inter-Departmental Group on Future Investment, which I established earlier this year, sets out a range of options for future investment to enhance affordability, increase the accessibility and improve the quality of early years, after-school and out-of-school childcare, including the development of a new childcare subvention system to amalgamate existing targeted programme. Under this new system, all targeted childcare programmes would be open to both community/not-for-profit and private childcare providers. The options in this Report are being considered as part of the Estimates Process for 2016.