Written answers
Thursday, 11 July 2019
Department of Children and Youth Affairs
Childcare Services Data
Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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849. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the number of children on a waiting list for crèches by county; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [30713/19]
Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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My Department funds 30 City and County Childcare Committees across the country. Part of their role is to advise my Department on capacity issues. In the first instance I would encourage anyone having difficulty in securing a place to make contact with their local CCC. Contact details for all of the CCCs, in addition to other information about the services they provide, may be found on www.myccc.ie
Each year Pobal conducts research on behalf of my Department to examine a number of factors related to childcare services in Ireland, including the monitoring of capacity. The Early Years Sector Profile report, which was published in November and relates to the 2017/2018 programme year, indicates that existing childcare provision nationally meets current needs nationwide in terms of capacity whilst recognising that small pockets of under supply may exist within this.
Pobal reports that nationally the trend suggests a reduction in waiting lists for older children and an increase for under twos. Pobal cautions that its data on waiting lists cannot by itself be used to inform capacity decisions as parents often place their children on more than one waiting list. The following table is the latest information available taken from the Pobal report.
County | Enrolled | Waiting list | Vacant places |
---|---|---|---|
Carlow | 2,057 | 260 | 68 |
Cavan | 3,120 | 249 | 104 |
Clare | 4,280 | 192 | 383 |
Cork City | 4,246 | 510 | 295 |
Cork County | 14,662 | 869 | 1,032 |
Donegal | 6,575 | 477 | 882 |
Dublin – Dublin City | 16,075 | 3,492 | 581 |
Dublin – Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown | 6,357 | 880 | 224 |
Dublin – Fingal | 11,149 | 1,076 | 450 |
Dublin – South Dublin | 9,294 | 639 | 373 |
Galway | 10,514 | 571 | 620 |
Kerry | 5,625 | 269 | 186 |
Kildare | 8,045 | 350 | 304 |
Kilkenny | 3,944 | 414 | 195 |
Laois | 3,695 | 43 | 298 |
Leitrim | 1,437 | 63 | 74 |
Limerick | 7,805 | 865 | 278 |
Longford | 1,685 | 168 | 59 |
Louth | 4,297 | 238 | 197 |
Mayo | 4,509 | 421 | 331 |
Meath | 6,996 | 396 | 355 |
Monaghan | 3,623 | 147 | 190 |
Offaly | 2,697 | 123 | 225 |
Roscommon | 2,311 | 172 | 98 |
Sligo | 3,144 | 185 | 88 |
Tipperary | 6,662 | 372 | 437 |
Waterford | 4,612 | 274 | 203 |
Westmeath | 3,781 | 316 | 385 |
Wexford | 5,724 | 296 | 281 |
Wicklow | 4,276 | 231 | 224 |
Total | 173,197 | 14,558 | 9,420 |
Further, I secured €8.86m in capital funding for childcare in 2019 with the ultimate aim of benefitting parents and children through improving our childcare infrastructure and capacity. A particular focus will be to expand service provision for children under three years of age.
Under the National Planning Framework and the National Development Plan published in 2018, I ensured that Childcare was identified as one of our nation's strategic priorities. I am delighted that €250 million in additional funding has been committed to for the expansion of high quality, early learning and care and school age childcare over the duration of the Plan.
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