Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 26 Oct 2000

Vol. 525 No. 1

Written Answers. - Child Care Services.

Paul McGrath

Ceist:

165 Mr. McGrath asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the number of applications per county received by his Department for grant aid for capital works to provide childcare facilities, in each of the past three years; the numbers successful per county; the amounts approved per county; and the amounts per county which have actually been drawn down. [23689/00]

Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform (Mr. O'Donoghue)

As the Deputy may be aware my Department provides funding under a range of initiatives to support the development of child care services including capital grants. Since 1998 funding has been administered under my Department's equal opportunities child care programme. In 1998, the programme secured funding for capital projects for the two year period 1998 and 1999 as follows: £2,575,200 million to invest in capital grants to community based child care facilities and £842,000 for capital grants under an employer demonstration initiative designed to encourage employer involvement in the development of child care services for employees.

The funding was administered as follows for the years 1998 and 1999:

County	Number ofApplications Received	Number Approved	Amount Approved £	Drawdown £
Cavan	5	0	0	0
Cork	16	10	198,500	198,500
Clare	11	4	115,000	55,000
Carlow	2	2	3,700	3,700
Donegal	8	0	0	0
Dublin	67	40	1,147,500	969,500
Galway	13	5	250,000	250,000
Kildare	2	0	0	0
Kilkenny	3	1	40,000	40,000
Kerry	12	10	451,700	226,700
Laois	2	2	77,000	2,000
Longford	5	2	21,500	21,500
Louth	7	3	19,000	19,000
Limerick	11	5	266,300	266,300
Leitrim	2	1	28,000	28,000
Meath	3	3	29,000	29,000
Mayo	15	4	105,000	105,000
Monaghan	3	0	0	0
Offaly	4	0	0	0
Roscommon	7	2	50,000	30,000
Sligo	5	3	141,000	141,000
Tipperary	5	4	114,000	114,000
Waterford	9	3	105,000	105,000
Westmeath	16	4	45,000	45,000
Wicklow	4	3	125,000	125,000
Wexford	13	3	85,000	85,000
Total	250	114	3,417,200	2,859,200

The Government identified child care as a priority area for investment in the National Development Plan 2000-2006 which provides £250 million to my Department's equal opportunities childcare programme. The funding will be drawn down over the seven year period. The programme will support a range of child care measures designed to maintain child care places, increase the number of child care facilities and child care places and improve the quality of child care service provision. Capital projects are sup ported under two of the measures, viz.: capital grants for community groups and not-for-profit organisations towards the building, renovation or upgrading of community based child care facilities; capital grant scheme for self-employed providers catering for not more than 20 children at any one time, providing support towards the building, renovation or upgrading of childcare facilities.

To date, the funding for 2000 is being administered as follows:

County	Number of Applications Received	Number of Applications Approved	Amount Approved since July 2000	Amount Drawn Down
Carlow	0	0	0	0
Cavan	2	1	40,000	0
Clare	5	1	40,000	0
Cork	16	5	628,406	0
Donegal	11	6	196,101	12,000
Dublin	37	10	1,405,370	0
Galway	9	5	178,541	0
Kerry	9	1	152,500	0
Kildare	12	3	67,612	0
Kilkenny	3	1	4,000	0
Laois	4	1	7,670	0
Leitrim	7	5	420,275	0
Limerick	6	5	49,726	7,776
Longford	3	2	77,500	0
Louth	2	1	15,000	11,250
Mayo	6	1	40,000	0
Meath	3	2	33,890	9,818
Monaghan	4	3	63,500	0
Offaly	2	2	8,632	3,600
Roscommon	6	1	26,605	0
Sligo	5	3	50,152	0
Tipperary	7	2	10,000	3,000
Waterford	6	4	106,948	0
Westmeath	1	1	2,600	0
Wexford	9	4	90,800	0
Wicklow	5	2	36,000	10,500
Total	180	72	3,802,737	57,944

NB. The programme provides for drawing down of capital funding over periods of up to three years.

On 18 October last, I announced details of further childcare funding of £26.5 million which has been allocated to my Department to invest in childcare under an anti-inflationary package. The funding will be invested in a further range of child care initiatives including the provision of capital grants to private sector child care providers catering for more than 20 children. I intend to promote this measure in the coming weeks.