Childcare provision in creches owned by Vocational Education Committees (VECs) is mainly funded under the Childcare Education and Training Support (CETS) scheme, which is operated by the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, under the Community Childcare Subvention Scheme (CCSS) framework. The CETS is targeted at participants in a range of further education and training programmes delivered by FÁS and VECs.
14 VECs own crèches and some of those VECs had been indicating that under CETS their crèches may not be financially viable in the long term, mainly because their operating costs were higher than those of commercial or community crèches (the levels of subvention under the CETS are in line with best practice as established by DCYA). My Department provided transitional core funding to support these creches in 2010 and in 2011 but I am not in a position to sustain this additional support in the long term.
Where VECs take the decision to close a creche, the places that were provided in that creche under the CETS can be made available to other local childcare services so there will be no loss in places as a result of the closure of these créches and no impact on lone parents in disadvantaged areas returning to education.