Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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514. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the number of baby boxes being delivered to parents under the national early years strategy announced in April 2018. [46587/18]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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A Whole-of-Government Strategy for Babies, Young Children and their Families has recently been approved by Government and will be published on 19th November. The Strategy sets out a vision for early childhood and a roadmap for the coming decade.

One of the actions in the Strategy is to pilot the introduction of baby boxes and Dormant Accounts funding has been secured for this project.

Baby boxes will contain a range of practical and useful items and information resources to support the transition to and early stages of parenthood. The project will pilot and test the design, items for inclusion, procurement, registration and distribution of Baby Boxes in a selected geographic area. The pilot phase of the project will also include the development of accompanying information resources and training of staff involved in roll out.

It is anticipated that the pilot will allow for approximately 5,000 baby boxes to be developed and delivered.

There will be a significant emphasis in the pilot on evaluation of impact of the measure with a view to determining whether it is suitable for wider roll out.