Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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535. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if he intends to provide transport to children (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4639/23]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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My Department does not directly provide an Early Learning and Care or School Aged Childcare transport service. Services may at their own discretion provide for transport as part of their overall service offer and the substantial subsidies provided by this Department contribute to the cost of this throughout the offset of fees in those services.

The Early Years division of my department are working to ensure that all children of an eligible age have access to the ECCE pre-school programme. The City and County Childcare Committees are acting as a conduit of information for parents from Ukraine and pre-school providers in making every effort to match children where possible to their local service.

In some cases, families are being accommodated some distance from pre-school provision and access to transport is a difficulty for families. My department mapped the ECCE provision and asked the Department of Transport to consider community-based transport initiatives take into account routes between large accommodation centres and pre-schools. This has been done where possible.

Whilst it is not always feasible for a small number of families assigned to remote locations, the DECDIY will continue to match children to the most local provision and to consider alternative solutions where transport is an issue.