Thomas Byrne
Question:81. Deputy Thomas Byrne asked the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs her plans to assist in the planning for provision of further childcare places in County Meath. [43217/19]
View answerTuesday, 22 October 2019
Questions (81)
Written answers
My Department has had an unprecedented increase of 137% for early learning and care and school age childcare in the past five budgets. This extra investment has supported a doubling of capacity in the sector, including both ECCE and the 0-3 age group.
One of the key priorities for my Department's capital programme is supporting private and not for profit childcare providers to extend their existing services, or to establish new services, where need or demand exists.
Each year my Department reviews the Early Learning and Care and School Age Childcare sector to determine how the Capital funding available can best be invested.
The decision on where to target capital spending to support policy aims is informed by an analysis of the current state of the childcare sector, learnings from previous capital programmes and feedback and input from stakeholders, including childcare providers and data from Pobal and other sources.
In my Departments 2019 capital scheme, I secured €5.9m towards the creation of new places within the Early Learning and Care and School Age Childcare sector. This is expected to create 1,321 new 0-3 places and 2,308 new school age places.
Early years providers from County Meath compete alongside services from all other parts of the country for Capital Finding. All applications are appraised in a fair and impartial manner and solely on the basis of the quality of their application.
As regards capacity issues more generally, each year Pobal conducts research on behalf of my Department to examine a number of factors related to childcare services in Ireland, including capacity.
The latest Early Years Sector Profile report, based on a survey completed in May 2018, outlines a 5% vacancy rate as a percentage of children enrolled in Meath.
Pobal reports that nationally the trend for waiting lists suggests a reduction in waiting lists for older children and an increase for under twos. Pobal cautions that its data on waiting lists cannot by itself be used to inform capacity decisions as parents often place their children on more than one waiting list.
Finally, if the Deputy is aware of any specific cases of parents having difficulty accessing childcare places, they could make contact with their local City or County Childcare Committee who will be pleased to assist them.
Question No. 82 answered with Question No. 61.