Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 27 April 2004
737 Mr. F. McGrath asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform if he will give an update on funds from the EU equal opportunities child care grant administered by the Department; the amount of the grant that has been spent on local projects; the amount that has been returned to the EU; if €38 million was sent back prior to the last general election; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11704/04]
View answerFollowing 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 approximately €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.
Accordingly, the revised allocations to the three strands of funding are as follows: capital developments, approximately €160 million; staffing supports, €201.6 million; and quality initiatives, €86.8 million. These amounts include an element of administration estimated at about 4%.
Commitments entered into to date with local projects amount to €213 million in capital and staffing funding for community based and 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 county child care committees and supports to the national voluntary child care organisations.
The EOCP is a seven-year rolling programme and the EU funding is available until end 2007 in the case of much of the south east region and 2008 for the border, midlands and western region. All projects, which have received grant assistance, are being monitored to ensure that they proceed as planned. The funding allocated to any project, which cannot proceed, will be de-committed and made available to another project.
It is my intention that all the funding available will be drawn down at the earliest opportunity and no later than 2007. There is no question of any funding having been returned to the EU at any stage under the programme to date. I am fully committed to maximise the draw down of funding from the EU, including any additional funding which might come available on transfer, such as has recently benefited the programme as a result of the mid-term review of the national development plan and regional operational programmes.
