Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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273. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the progress in introducing large scale capital grants to assist in the provision of childcare places; if her attention has been drawn to the fact that the present level of grants is perceived to be not adequate to support some communities that wish to expand community childcare facilities or provide new ones in which there is a proven demand for such childcare provision; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [18371/19]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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A key priority for the Department of Children and Youth Affairs is to support the Early Learning and Care and School Age Childcare sector through the provision of capital funding where it is most needed.  

I have allocated significant funding in recent years for this purpose and for improving the quality of infrastructure nationwide.

In 2019, I secured a Capital budget of €9.6 million for the sector which will enable a focus on increasing the number of places available, and supporting the transition of services to the forthcoming National Childcare Scheme. Of this, €6.1 million has been allocated for the 2019 Early Learning and Care and School Age Childcare Capital programmes.

This funding will be delivered in three strands, as follows:

€4.23 million will be available under Strand A, which will offer grants of up to €50,000 to early learning and care providers for the creation of new places for 0-3 year-olds where demand for these is clearly evidenced.

€875,000 has been allocated to Strand B, which will offer individual grants of up to €15,000 to aid community/not-for-profit early learning and care services in addressing fire safety issues.

Finally there will be €1 million for Strand C, which will offer individual grants of up to €20,000 to school age childcare providers for the creation of new school age places where demand for these is clearly demonstrated.

The application window for the Early Learning and Care and School Age Capital programmes opened on 25 February and closed on 27 March 2019. Applications are now in the middle of the appraisal stage, which is undertaken by Pobal and overseen by my Department.

Applications are being appraised using a fair process, based on a number of criteria, including: Demonstration of need; Value For Money; Capacity of the organisation (including compliance with scheme rules); Project Achievability, and Socio-economic deprivation in the service's location.

Capital programmes are necessarily a budget limited exercise. The maximum grant size available under each of these strands has been determined to optimise what can be delivered by each individual grant, and to maximise the number of providers and children who will ultimately benefit from the funding.

Decisions on the award of capital grants are due to be delivered in June 2019 , once the appraisal process has concluded.

Furthermore, childcare was identified as a strategic priority in the National Development Plan (2018-2027) and €250 million in capital funding was secured for childcare under the plan. This represents the kind of large scale investment in the sector by the State that has not been undertaken since the earlier National Childcare Investment Programme that concluded in 2010.

This investment will be essential to respond to the increased capacity we expect as the new National Childcare Scheme is introduced. The NCS will radically change how this country supports the cost of early learning and care and school age childcare.

Research is on-going to determine areas of specific need that the NDP funding will address when it comes on stream in the coming years. The exact shape and priorities of this funding is currently being developed: more information will be made public on childcare plans under the NDP as it becomes available.