Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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264. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the value of the sustainability fund set aside by her Department for community child care providers (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [8962/17]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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I am aware that some services have been impacted by the full implementation of the Child Care Act 1991 (Early Years Services) Regulations 2016, which require that all staff should hold a minimum FETAC level 5 qualification, when working directly with children. In several cases, services have been utilising staff working on Community Employment (CE) schemes, Tús and Rural Social Scheme participants to count towards their required ratios, and under the regulations, this will only be allowed when the individual in question has the necessary qualification.

In order to assist services in addressing this challenge, 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 it 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, and I will make sufficient additional money available to each service after analysis of their individual financial situation to ensure that they can fully meet the cost of these staff until September 2017. After this time these services should be in a position to fund these places through their own income; but this will be kept under review. 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 Childcare Committees Ireland project during 2016; over 200 did so, 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 very shortly, with Pobal making payments on behalf of the local Childcare Committee.