Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 14 December 2004
325 Ms Burton asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform if he will provide details of the funding provided by his Department for child care from 1997 to date, analysed by year and county; and the percentage of the total awarded to each county both by amounts spent and relative to population. [33273/04]
View answerI wish to draw the Deputy's attention to Developing Childcare in Ireland, which I made available to every Deputy in summer 2004 and which offers a detailed analysis of the development of child care on a county by county basis. It is my intention to make an update available to every Deputy early in 2005.
The first equal opportunities child care programme ran from January 1998 to June 2000 and involved three strands of funding — the capital infrastructure, the employer demonstration project and the community support child care initiative. The total budget for the programme was £11.5 million, or €14.6 million, and in all 123 projects received funding — 90 capital infrastructure projects, 25 community support child care initiative projects and eight employer demonstration initiative projects.
The total funding committed under the Equal Opportunities Childcare Programme 2000 — 2006 to date is now €323.4 million and this is expected to create over 34,000 new child care places. This includes the new commitment of the first tranche of €10 million from the additional €90 million in capital grant assistance made to me in budget 2005, and I expect to make further announcements of capital grant support to areas where there are gaps in child care service provision in a planned manner as soon as possible.
