Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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77. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if he will outline the likely priorities for the national development plan capital budget for childcare. [25581/23]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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Some €69 million was allocated to the Early Learning and Childcare sector in the revised National Development Plan (NDP) allocation. This will enable significant capital investment in early learning and childcare across three pillars: (1) Building Blocks - Improvement Grant, (2) Building Blocks - Capacity Grant and (3) Building Blocks - Innovation Grant.

The €9 million Building Blocks - Improvement Grant was launched by my Department late last year and applicants were advised of the outcome on 4th April. This scheme is part of a wider Building Blocks Capital Programme for early learning and childcare under the National Development Plan designed to meet current and long-term early learning and childcare infrastructure needs.

The design of both the Building Blocks - Capacity Grant scheme and the Innovation Scheme are currently underway. A working group has been established comprising officials of my Department, representatives of the County Childcare Committees and Pobal.

As a first step, I have asked the working group to provide me with options for the delivery of a capital funding scheme which will aim to address capacity gaps by providing funding in areas where they are most needed. Some €20m has been made available to my Department in 2024 with a further €45m available in 2025 for this purpose.

To this end his working group has commenced a needs analysis of the Early Learning and Childcare sector. This analysis will look at undersupply by region and by age category and will ensure that my Department can fund additional capacity where it is most needed.

I hope to provide more details of these two grant schemes in the coming months.