Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 3 July 2018
478. Deputy Fiona O'Loughlin asked the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the status of the implementation of the affordable childcare scheme; when it will be fully functioning; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [28719/18]
View answerI am glad to report that the officials at my Department are making good progress in the development of the Affordable Childcare Scheme. This development involves intensive work across legislative, ICT, administrative, governance and communications areas.
With regard to the legislation establishing the new Affordable Childcare Scheme, the Childcare Support Bill completed its passage through the Houses of the Oireachtas on Tuesday, 26th June, and is expected to be enacted in the coming days.
The Childcare Support Bill will be underpinned by detailed secondary legislation and formal policy guidelines. Work is currently ongoing on both of these and also on the development of regulations to provide, for the first time, for the registration of school-age childcare services by the Tusla Early Years Inspectorate. These latter regulations will be introduced in advance of the Affordable Childcare Scheme to allow services to register and thereby participate in the scheme from its inception.
With regard to the development of the ICT system, our work is subject to an independent peer review process under the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer to ensure that it is rigorous, robust and of the highest possible standard. Against a backdrop of detailed preparatory work, at the beginning of the year, I published a Request for Tenders for the development of the scheme's IT system. An evaluation of tenders received has now been completed, a preferred bidder has been notified and the contract negotiation phase is underway. This final contracting phase involves the agreement of a project implementation plan for the IT system which will set out timelines for its development, testing and 'go live'. Once this project implementation plan is agreed as part of the IT contract, and approved by the independent Peer Review Group, I will be in a position to confirm and communicate a planned start date for the Affordable Childcare Scheme.
I am happy to say that good progress is being made too on the administrative, governance and communications areas.
Finally, the Deputy may also wish to note that 76,000 children have availed of childcare subsidies under the interim measures introduced in September 2017 in order to fast-track some of the benefits of the Affordable Childcare Scheme.
