Robert O'Donoghue (Dublin Fingal West, Labour)
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2451. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality given the Government’s commitment to expanding affordable and accessible early education and school age childcare, if she will outline the role her Department is playing in coordinating with the National Development Plan to ensure the delivery of public childcare facilities as part of strategic housing developments on publicly owned land; if consideration has been given to ring-fencing spaces for public childcare in LDA-led developments; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [43115/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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Improving access to quality and affordable early learning and childcare is a key priority of Government.

A Forward Planning and Delivery Unit in my Department has been allocated additional staff and is pursuing an ambitious programme of work. A forward planning model is in development which maps the distribution of children of different ages and the corresponding early learning and childcare provision in order to identify the level of coverage of provision.

The Programme for Government commits for the first time to providing 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 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.

Early scoping work to explore options to introduce a segment of public provision has been undertaken and 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 includes engagement with a number of public bodies and others, including the Land Development Agency, to identify opportunities for collaboration to deliver on Programme for Government commitments.

The 2001 Planning Guidelines for Local Authorities on Early Learning and Childcare Settings set out that, in new communities/new housing areas, planning authorities should require the provision of at least one early learning and childcare facility for new housing areas and other areas of residential development unless there are significant reasons to the contrary. These guidelines apply equally to Land Development Agency developments as to other developers.

The Programme for Government commits to reviewing the 2001 Childcare Facilities Guidelines for Planning Authorities to ensure that sufficient early learning and childcare infrastructure is provided and put into use.

Robert O'Donoghue (Dublin Fingal West, Labour)
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2452. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality if she will provide an update of any planned or ongoing review of core funding for the early childhood education and care sector; whether the review will address concerns regarding sustainability, staffing costs and capacity pressures; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [43116/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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An evaluation of the first year of Core Funding and the development of an evaluation framework for Core Funding is currently underway. This project will examine the early implementation of Core Funding and make recommendations for future evaluations of the grant. Findings from the project are expected in Quarter 4 2025.

This project is being undertaken by Irish Government Economic and Evaluation Service or IGEES policy analysts working in the Research and Evaluation Unit of my Department. IGEES is an integrated cross-government service established in 2012 with the objective of enhancing the role of economics and value for money analysis in public policy making. It is part of the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform.