Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael)
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418. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs her views on a matter (details supplied) regarding the purchase of land; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [40901/19]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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My Department provides capital funding annually to early learning and care and school age childcare services. The capital programme is designed each year to ensure that capital grants have a positive, lasting impact on the childcare sector including increasing capacity, however, the purchase of land has not been part of the scheme in recent years. A service wishing to increase capacity can apply towards the costs of constructing a new premises or extending an existing one for the purposes of the creation of the additional places.

In 2019 the three strands of capital funding available were divided as follows:

- Strand A offered grants of up to €50,000 to early learning and care providers for the creation of new 0-3 places where demand for these was clearly evidenced.

- Strand B offered individual grants of up to €15,000 to aid community/not-for-profit early learning and care services in addressing fire safety issues that had been highlighted in inspection reports by Tusla, the HSE or Local Authorities.

- Strand C offered individual grants of up to €20,000 to school age childcare providers for the creation of new school age places where demand for these was clearly evidenced.

The application window for the 2019 Capital programme closed on 27 March 2019 with decisions issued to applicants in June 2019.

Please note that the strands and priorities for the 2020 capital programme have not yet been decided. An announcement will be published shortly.