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Childcare Services

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 15 June 2021

Tuesday, 15 June 2021

Questions (992)

Seán Sherlock

Question:

992. Deputy Sean Sherlock asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the number of public health nurse referrals for sponsorship under the national childcare scheme which have been made since May 2020, by CHO area in tabular form. [31619/21]

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Written answers

The HSE is one of five Sponsor Bodies with an agreement with my Department to make sponsored referrals under the National Childcare Scheme. The HSE can sponsor a child under the NCS to enable participation in a childcare service where there is an identified need for childcare as an additional support to the home environment to meet child development needs for a child who is under the age of 4 years and who is not enrolled in a preschool programme funded by my Department or the Minister for Education and who would otherwise not attend a childcare service.

As clarified to the Deputy, it is not possible to provide a breakdown by CHO area as the NCS does not use this metric. Furthermore, the NCS does not collect any geographic information relating to sponsored children. Therefore the breakdown provided below relates to the county of the referring official within the Sponsor Body.

Table 1 provides a breakdown by sponsor county of children referred by the HSE between 1 May 2020 and 31 May 2021. While these numbers represent completed sponsored referrals, not all progressed to a claim being made against the award. Table 2 provides the total figure.

Table 1:

County

HSE referred children

Clare

2

Cork

14

Dublin

152

Kerry

1

Kildare

2

Limerick

13

Louth

8

Meath

8

Sligo

1

Westmeath

1

Table 2:

Sponsor

Children

All HSE referred children

202

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