Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 27 April 2004
749 Mr. G. Mitchell asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the reason the review of the EOCP is taking so long, when the review will be completed; and when the outcome will be made public. [11875/04]
View answerMy 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.
There are a number of elements, which have to come together to complete the review of the equal opportunities childcare programme. Because the EOCP is an element of the community support framework for Ireland and of the national development plan, it was also reviewed as part of the mid-term evaluations of the regional operational programmes through which its EU funding is channelled and as part of the NDP itself. It was also extensively reviewed by the NDP CSF evaluation unit. The implementation of the recommendations of these reviews requires decisions of the monitoring committees, which are taking place this week.
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 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.
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 about €14 million.
My Department has carried out a detailed review of the budget lines for the entire programme to ensure that the amounts allocated under the different strands of the programme best meet the requirements for the development of the sector.
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%. 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.
My Department has also asked Area Development Management Limited, which carries out the day-to-day administration of the equal opportunities programme on my behalf, to ensure that all capital projects, which have already received grant allocations will proceed. Many of these projects are either awaiting planning permission or the completion of tender processes before reasonable assurance can be taken that they will proceed and draw down the funds. In the event that any of these projects do not proceed, the funding will be de-committed and made available to another suitable project.
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. 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.
