Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

22. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the total funding available to implement the action plan for school age children; and the way in which this will deliver affordable care for children out of school hours. [15134/17]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Action Plan on School Age Childcare, a cross-Department report, was launched at the meeting of the Early Years Forum on Monday 6 March. The Action Plan was heavily informed by consultations with various groups over 2015 and 2016, and contains information related to school age childcare provision in Ireland and international best practice. The Action Plan sets out the actions that the Department of Children and Youth Affairs and the Department of Education and Skills can immediately progress to address the needs identified. Progress on the Action Plan will be monitored and independently reviewed after three years. The Plan highlights that the essential components of a child centred and effective model of school age childcare are access, affordability, and quality.

Most of the actions committed to in the plan do not require additional funding at this point in time but will be delivered with existing resources. For example, an immediate priority is the development of a comprehensive set of quality standards to specifically address the needs of school age children. A robust system of quality assurance against the standards will also be designed and will be a requirement to be eligible for any State funding. The Learner Fund my Department operates will be redesigned to include dedicated funding each year for education on school age childcare. The Department of Education and Skills will use its existing resource to develop guidelines for schools interested in providing school age childcare services.

€3 million has been provided in 2017 for major and minor capital grants to ensure sufficient access to high quality and affordable school age childcare. The new capital scheme will be open to both community/not-for-profit and private services and will comprise three separate strands. The first strand, for the establishment of new School Age Childcare services, will see a grant of up to €20,000 being made available. The second strand will see a grant of up to €10,000 being made available for the expansion of existing services to provide additional places. The third strand will see a grant of up to €5,000 being made available to existing services to improve quality.

My Department has a budget of over €460m per annum to address both the affordability and quality of early years and school age childcare. Approximately 110,000 children benefit annually from the free pre-school scheme. Another 31,000 children benefited from subsidised early years and school age childcare in 2015/2016 with a budget available of approximately €86m.

The Affordable Childcare Scheme which I plan to introduce on a phased basis from September is a key part of the School Age Childcare Action Plan. It will provide a critical infrastructure for the provision of subsidised childcare to a much wider population, by suitably quality assured services. The scheme will enable Government to make additional investment available, year on year I hope, to reduce the cost of childcare, ideally to reach a stage where Ireland compares favourably with its OECD counterparts. The annual Estimates process will provide the mechanism for Government to consider the level of further investment possible for childcare.