Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael)
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553. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs her views on a matter (details supplied) regarding a childcare facility; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [42923/19]

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.

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 Aoffered 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 Boffered 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 Coffered 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 27thMarch 2019 with decisions issued to applicants in June 2019.

Whilst there are no other capital funding programmes available in 2019, planning for 2020's Capital offering is currently underway and the details of this will be communicated to providers in the coming months. The description I have provided above around the 2019 capital programme gives an indication of the nature and scale of the annual capital programme undertaken by my Department.

In the longer term I have also been successful in securing capital funding under the National Development Plan to support the Early Learning and Care sector. While this funding is not due to come on stream for a number of years, most likely 2023 to 2028, my officials have commenced work to assess how best this funding might be targeted.