Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 11 February 2014
547. Deputy Kevin Humphreys asked the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the amount of funding that will be made available to each specific project under the design stage of the ABC programme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [6368/14]
View answerThe Area Based Childhood (ABC) scheme 2013-2016 is being implemented by my Department, in partnership with Atlantic Philanthropies who are co-funding the programme's total allocation of €29.7m. The programme will deliver the Programme for Government commitment to adopt an area-based approach to child poverty, drawing on best international practice and existing services to break the cycle of child poverty where it is most deeply entrenched and improve the outcomes for children and young people. The ABC programme will build on and continue much of the work of the Prevention and Early Intervention (PEIP) Programme, which was also implemented by my Department and co-funded by Atlantic Philanthropies.
50 applications to participate in the programme were received by the closing date of 31 May 2013. Three of these were from the previous PEIP participants and these were evaluated and approved for entry to the programme in July 2013. The remaining 47 applications were then evaluated and nine were approved in November 2013 for entry to the next, design stage of the programme. Applications were evaluated against the criteria set out in the applications process, namely Evidence of Need, Quality of the Proposal, Additionality & Sustainability, and Understanding and Capturing Outcomes, and ranked accordingly.
During the design stage, the selected entrants will be required to further develop their proposals including providing more detailed costings. Pending successful completion of the design stage, it will not be possible to approve specific funding allocations for the new entrants. Some projects may advance to the final approval stage more quickly than others, however, I hope to see as many as possible of the projects at implementation stage by July 2014.
To assist this process, my Department, in partnership with Atlantic Philanthropies, has engaged Pobal and the Centre for Effective Services to provide the new entrants with technical assistance. To begin this engagement, an Information event was held on 30 January 2014 in the F2 Centre, Rialto, Dublin, at which information on the various actions required and associated timeframes envisaged for completion of the design stage was given. Representatives from all of the new projects were present at the event.
