Anne Rabbitte
Question:993. Deputy Anne Rabbitte asked the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the number of full-time childcare places which were available for preschool children in September 2018 and 2019. [8423/20]
View answerWednesday, 3 June 2020
Questions (993)
Written answers
Each year Pobal conducts research on behalf of my Department to examine a number of factors related to early learning and care and school age childcare services in Ireland, including the monitoring of capacity. This is published in the annual Early Years Sector Profile.
Based on the Annual Early Years Service Profile 2018/19 data (collected in May 2019), it can be estimated that in September 2018 there were 46,568 full day places available nationally for pre-school children.
The data for the 2019 annual Early Years Sector Profile will not be available until later this year, but my Department has estimated, based on the 2018/19 sector profile and trends from previous years, that the number of full day places available nationally in September 2019 was 47,732.