John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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727. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to detail the strategies being progressed within her Department to expand the provision of after-school and childcare in school buildings and campuses, in order to provide better access for parents and communities as per the Programme for Government commitment; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [32571/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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Improving access to quality and affordable Early Learning and Care and School Age Childcare is a key priority of Government.

The early learning and childcare sector has expanded significantly in recent years; enrollments increased by 19% between 2022 and 2024 and registrations of new services have increased. This is particularly the case with school age childcare services with 261 new school age childcare services having opened in 2024.

The Programme for Government sets out the ambition to work with schools to host before and after-school childcare in school buildings as well as planning the development of State-led early learning and childcare facilities in tandem with the school building programme, specifically referencing Irish medium naíonraí.

Last year, the Department of Education published Procedures on the use of school property and school sports facilities outside of school hours. This document provides encouragement and guidance to schools to make available facilities for early learning and childcare and other community purposes when not required by the school.

Officials have met a number of times with officials from the Department of Education’s Planning and Building Unit with a view to sharing expertise and information between the Departments and identify opportunities for future developments. The potential for development of State-led facilities in tandem with the school building programme will be considered as part of the wider capital plans to develop State-led services.

The Programme for Government commits for the first time to provide capital investment to build or purchase state-owned early learning and childcare facilities, to create additional capacity in areas where unmet need exists. State ownership of facilities is a a very substantial and significant development and offers the potential for much greater scope to influence the nature and volume of provision available and to ensure better alignment with estimated demand.

Some early scoping work has been carried out to explore options to introduce a segment of public provision. More detailed and extensive policy development and design is ongoing in order progress to implementation stage, having regard to the wider emerging policy context as set out in the Programme for Government.

This work will form part of my Department’s contribution to the review of the National Development Plan which will set out the capital allocation to underpin this work in the coming years. There has been a range of engagements at official and political level to inform the update National Development Plan between my Department and the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform. My officials and I are continuing to engage with colleagues across Government on the review.