Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

167. To ask the Minister for Social Protection the number of persons on Tús, the rural social scheme, RSS, and community employment, CE, schemes who carried out duties in community child care facilities for each of the years 2013 to 2016 by county, in tabular form. [7477/17]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Department introduced a new Community Employment (CE) Childcare Strand in 2013 under which there is a dedicated childcare programme leading to a QQI Level 5 Major Award in Early Childhood Care and Education for CE participants who work directly with children. Under the new programme guidelines, CE participants in childcare places may receive up to 3 years continuous duration on the programme in order to achieve the QQI Level 5 qualification, subject to meeting annual review criteria and engagement in intensive job search activities.

These changes are designed to provide a more tailored and valuable support to the provision of community childcare and achieve greater coherence between participation on CE and the job market. This will improve the career path for participants who wish to pursue a career in childcare.

The numbers of CE participants recorded as working in dedicated childcare positions from 2013 to 2016, broken down by county, are set out in table 1.

Table 1

From the records available to the Department, the number of persons on Tús and the rural social scheme (RSS) that were recorded as undertaking some duties in childcare settings in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 by county, is set out in the following tables. These programmes do not have a dedicated childcare strand.

Table 2- Tús participants recorded as working in childcare 2013 to 2016

Tús Participants Working In Childcare

Table 3- RSS participants recorded as working in childcare 2015 and 2016 (information requested prior to 2015 on RSS is not available)

RSS Participants working in Childcare

I hope this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.