Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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34. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the capital funding available in 2016 towards the provision of child care places and-or the upgrading of existing facilities for community and private providers; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [22937/16]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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I was delighted to announce recently that more than €6.5m in capital funding has been allocated through my Department to 1,006 pre-school providers nationwide. This represents an increase of over €2.5m on the amount of €4m announced for this programme in February 2016. This grant has been made available for early years pre-school services, both private and not-for-profit/community, that are intending to expand their service to provide for more capacity in the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme. Grants of up to €10,000 per provider are being provided. The extension of the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) pre-school scheme so that every child will be able to access free pre-school from the age of three until they start school (entering pre-school in the September, January or April after they turn three) is a welcome development for children, parents and Early Years providers.  It will see more than 60,000 additional children enrolled in the programme by April 2017.  Children will now benefit from an average of 61 weeks of the scheme, up from 38 weeks.  In order to ensure that there is sufficient capacity in the sector to provide for these children, this is one of a number of measures my Department has developed to assist services to expand.

The award of funding was based partially on evidence of current need and/or projected future demand for additional ECCE places in 2016/2017 in the catchment area of each applying service. The relevant City/County Childcare Committee assisted Pobal with demand versus supply data. Value for money was also an awarding criteria and the costs/grant requested relative to the number of ECCE places being created was taken into account when evaluating grant applications.

I am delighted that so many high quality applications were received under this scheme, and that the majority of applications were approved for drawdown of funding. I look forward to working with the sector to deliver further improvements in childcare quality, availability and affordability over the coming year. It is hoped that it will be possible to make a similar capital fund available next year. This is something that will be addressed in the context of the estimates process and Budget 2017.