Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 27 April 2004
697 Mr. Rabbitte asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the plans he has to ensure the ongoing sustainability of the services operating under the equal opportunities childcare programme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11356/04]
View answer698 Mr. Rabbitte asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the specific amounts allocated under the equal opportunities childcare programme and the way in which the various limits applied to these are determined; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11355/04]
View answer699 Mr. Rabbitte asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform his views on whether it is appropriate that the many child care programmes continue to depend on active labour market programmes to provide their much needed services; the plans he has to review this situation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11357/04]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 697 to 699, inclusive, together.
My Department is responsible for the development of child care to meet the needs of parents in employment, education and training. For this purpose, €436.7 million of funding was provided by the European Union and the Exchequer through the equal opportunities childcare programme, EOCP. Of this amount, the EU is contributing more than €170 million of Structural Funds toward the programme. Following the mid-term reviews of the national development plan and the regional operational programmes through which its EU supports are channelled, the funding available for the Equal Opportunities Childcare Programme 2000 — 2006 is due to increase from €436.7 million to about €449 million over the life of the programme. This requires the completion of some technicalities at the BMW and south east regional operational programme monitoring committees, which take place this week, following which the precise amounts of the funding increases will be available.
I understand that approximately €12 million of additional EU and Exchequer match funding will now be made available for child care following the mid-term review of the national development plan and its constituent operational programmes. This is both welcome and a testament to the achievements of the programme to date and the arrangements for these additional funds are being finalised this week. This will bring to almost €449 million the commitment of public money to the development of child care over the life of the national development plan. This public investment is also directly levering some private investment in the sector, estimated at approximately €14 million.
The EU funding is channelled through the two child care measures of the regional operational programmes of the national development plan. The aim of these measures is, inter alia, to increase the supply of child care places to meet the needs of parents in employment, education and training. In this respect the programme is expected to increase the supply of centre based child care places by at least 50% or 28,400 over a seven-year period.
The EOCP has three funding strands: capital funding towards the creation of new and enhanced child care places; supports towards the staffing costs of community based facilities which support the child care needs of disadvantaged families; and supports which enhance the quality of Irish child care. The original allocations across these three measures — €144.7 million for capital, €217.1 million for staffing and €74.9 million for quality improvement — were made at a time when there was little concrete information available on the actual needs in the areas covered by the three strands.
As a result of the information now available on the demands under the three strands, the current mid-term review process is being used to increase the allocation towards the provision of capital investment by about €15 million to maximise the long-term benefits of the programme throughout Ireland. Partly because it is being funded by some of the additional transferred money to which I referred earlier and partly because some of the projects are under construction, this increase will not draw down staffing grants as speedily as might originally have been expected.
Accordingly, the revised allocations to the three strands of funding are as follows: capital developments of approximately €160 million; staffing supports of €201.6 million; and quality initiatives of €86.8 million. These amounts include an element of administration estimated at approximately 4%. Projects are selected on the basis of a range of criteria such as the socio-economic and demographic profile of the area; the quality of the proposal; the capacity of the group to implement the project; the level of integration and co-ordination of the project within the local community; and costings and value for money.
With regard to the progress of the ECOP, I understand that over €256 million has been allocated to projects under the programme to date. Of this amount, more than €213 million has been allocated in capital and staffing funding for community based, not for profit groups and private child care providers while €43 million has been allocated to quality improvement measures. Administration costs to date amount to approximately €10 million. The funding allocated to date will, when fully drawn down, lead to the creation of 28,392 new child care places — the programme target — and will support more than 26,642 existing places.
The nature of the programme is such that much of the funding remaining on the staffing and quality strands will be required to help support the ongoing staffing costs of those community based projects, which are unlikely to be viable in the short to medium term because of the levels of disadvantage among their client groups, and to meet the ongoing costs of the quality enhancing structures such as the city or county child care committees and supports to the national voluntary child care organisations.
My Department is finalising a detailed report on progress to date on the development of child care since the national child care strategy was adopted in 1999 and this will be available shortly. It will contain detail of all projects, which have been granted funding under the programme to the end of 2003 and I will be happy to forward a copy to the Deputy at the earliest opportunity.
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 do not doubt but that 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. Indeed should any additional funding become available before the end of the present national development plan, I would expect that the programme would again benefit from transfers.
I do not have any difficulty with the use of so-called labour market supports for child care. We are all aware of the large body of research which shows that labour force participation and preparation for work through education and training are most beneficial in breaking the cycle of disadvantage. Certain community based child care facilities are unlikely to be sustainable in their own right in the foreseeable future due to the levels of disadvantage among their clients. All projects are encouraged to become sustainable but it is likely that some ongoing supports will be needed for those projects which help support the most disadvantaged to progress their careers and lifestyles to the point where they become self-reliant. For this reason, it makes good sense to have funding for child care coming from labour market programmes, such as the European Social Fund.
Without doubt, the past four years have seen a very significant and welcome growth in the child care sector. The fruits of our investment under the national development plan are already to be seen on the ground and I am fully satisfied that the benefits and achievements of the present equal opportunities childcare programme will sow the seeds for its successor.
