Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

436. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the action that can be taken to ensure the availability of required childcare services in Straffan, County Kildare with particular reference to the increase of population the county; if is he aware of any plans to establish new facilities in this area; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5136/24]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Pobal Annual Early Years Sector Profile (AEYSP) provides a detailed overview of the Early Learning and Care (ELC) and School-Age Childcare (SAC) sector in Ireland, including the numbers of children in receipt of state subsidies, information on ELC and SAC fees, staff wages, qualifications and turnover. In December 2023, my Department launched the Early Learning and Childcare Data website, replacing the traditional paper-based AEYSP report. The website provides a new and innovative way of displaying administrative data as well as survey data collected annually from over 4,400 early learning and childcare services across the country, supporting evidence-informed policy development and planning.

This new website includes interactive dashboards that are released by Pobal on behalf of the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (DCEDIY), with additional dashboards being released over the coming weeks and months.

The most recently published Pobal Annual Early Years Sector Profile, covers the programme year 2022/23, and during this period 45% of services in Kildare reported that they had at least one vacancy compared to 51% of services nationally. There was a decrease from the previous year where 54% of services in Kildare reported that they had at least one vacancy compared to 56% of services nationally.

€69 million has been allocated over the period 2023-2025 to the ELC and SAC sector under the revised National Development Plan (NDP). This will enable significant capital investment across three pillars:

• Building Blocks -Improvement Grant;
• Building Blocks - Capacity Grant; and
• Building Blocks - Innovation Grant.

The Building Blocks Expansion Grant Scheme will open for applications in the coming weeks. The scheme will provide grants for the renovation or reconfiguration of the existing ELC facilities. I also hope to announce details of the Building Blocks Extension Grant Scheme in the coming months. The scheme will provide grants for larger scale extensions.

Both schemes are open to early learning and childcare services that are Tusla registered and are in contract with Core Funding, at the time of application.

€15 million has been set aside for the Building Blocks - Innovation Grant which offers the opportunity to adopt new approaches to the development of new ELC and SAC infrastructure. This strand is currently in an early design phase.

My Department is conducting a needs analysis of the ELC and SAC 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.