As the Deputy is aware, the Equal Opportunities Childcare Programme 2000 to 2006 makes grant assistance available under a range of measures to develop child care services throughout Ireland. Funding for the programme comes from both the European Union and the Exchequer.
To date in Dublin city and county I have allocated more than €25 million in capital and staffing grants to 211 projects under the programme. The funding will maintain more than 4,400 child care places and lead to the creation of more than 3,000 new child care places in the county. Nationally, I have allocated more than €110 million in grants to more than 1,000 projects under the capital, staffing and quality improvement strands of the programme which will maintain more than 16,000 child care places and lead to the creation of more than 13,000 child care places. The programme aims, inter alia, to increase the number of child care services and places, and to enhance the quality of child care.
Records for my Department's equal opportunities child care programme are maintained on a regional and county basis. As a list of capital grants for County Dublin is quite lengthy I will not detail them here but, for the Deputy's information, I am making available a list, by county, of projects with addresses which have secured grant approval in County Dublin to date.