Written answers

Tuesday, 14 February 2017

Department of Children and Youth Affairs

Child Care Services

Photo of Jonathan O'BrienJonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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664. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the actions she is taking to ensure that child care providers in the community setting have the resources to ensure adequate staff to maintain current capacity; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [6675/17]

Photo of Katherine ZapponeKatherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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I recently announced that €1m of additional funding will be made available to childcare providers who have been facilitating the training of Community Employment (CE) scheme workers, to ensure that regulatory changes do not impact on service delivery or the availability of childcare places.

In preparation for the implementation of the Child Care Act 1991 (Early Years Services) Regulations 2016, Childcare Committees Ireland were commissioned by my Department to investigate the impact of new childcare regulations on community childcare providers.

This research indicated that the vast majority of services would not face financial hardship as a result of changes required under the regulations. However this did find that some services had come to rely on Community Employment scheme workers, and I determined that these services should be provided additional funding to enable them to recruit and retain qualified staff to work alongside their CE scheme participants.

As a result, I have made available up to €2,000 for services to assist with the recruitment process or to provide expert support in HR management, with additional money being provided to each service after analysis of their individual financial situation, to ensure that they can fully meet the cost of these staff. No service will be forced to close.

Delivering high quality, accessible and affordable childcare is my key goal, and this funding will ensure that every child will be cared for by a qualified professional, and that services can sustain existing levels of provision, while they prepare for the new Affordable Childcare Scheme. Services are also providing more ECCE places than ever before, and I am confident that over 125,000 children will be receiving free pre-school care and education this summer.

All Community Childcare services around the country were afforded an opportunity to engage with the CCI project during 2016, and detailed analysis has been completed. As some services clearly needed additional funding to maintain service levels, this money has now been allocated from the provision made for Sustainability Funding in Budget 2017, and will be available for drawdown from next week, with Pobal making payments on behalf of the local Childcare Committee.

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