Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 27 April 2004
677 Mr. McHugh asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform if his Department has carried out an appraisal of the application for a child care facility received from Tuam Resource Centre; if the appraisal has been positive; if a grant will be made available to the resource centre to enable the project to proceed; the reasons for the delay in processing this application; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11146/04]
View answerThe day-to-day administration of the Equal Opportunities Childcare Programme 2000 — 2006 is undertaken by Area Development Management Limited, which has been engaged by my Department to carry out thorough assessments of all applications for grant assistance under the programme, on my behalf. All large-scale capital projects are referred by ADM to an independent external building specialist to assess the suitability of the proposal and its value for money.
There has been significant ongoing dialogue between the group in question and ADM with regard to this application. On completion of the assessment process this application will be considered by the programme appraisal committee, chaired by my Department, which will make a funding recommendation to me before I make a final decision on the matter.
All counties have benefited from new projects and additional child care places under the programme. We now need to use the remaining capital funding to address the most immediate service gaps. As a result, all the projects in the pipeline will be reviewed to ensure that those projects, which best meet the programme criteria and which can be completed by the end of the present programme, will receive priority. The ability to bring a project to fruition before the end of the present programme is an important criterion at this stage as I am aware that it can frequently take time to complete a project and there are constraints to ensure that we maximise our EU funding.
I have no doubt the success of the present strand of the EOCP and the need to continue to make child care available to support the child care needs of our still growing work force will support my case for ongoing capital and current funding from Government for this key sector. Should additional funding become available before the end of the present national development plan, I would expect that the programme would again benefit from transfers.
