Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 28 October 2004
305 Mr. Morgan asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform the average cost of child care in the State and in each county; the number of child care places available, full and part-time, in each county; the breakdown of those numbers in terms of the type of care catered for; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26644/04]
Amharc ar fhreagraAs the cost of child care is normally a commercial arrangement between parent and provider the State does not have a role in the collection of data on costs such as is sought by the Deputy. However, in order to establish a clear picture in relation to the child care sector, my Department asked the Central Statistics Office to review child care as an element of the quarterly national household survey and this was completed in the period from September to November 2002 and the findings of which were published in mid 2003.
The survey found that the average cost of child care per hour for pre-school and primary school-going children in the September to November 2002 period was €3.25 and €4.70 per hour respectively. The survey also provided a breakdown of the average cost of paid child care per household per week for pre-school and primary school-going children in different regions of the country. The following table summarises the key results of this element of the study.
|
Average weekly cost in € |
Range of weekly costs in € |
||
|
From (region) |
To (region) |
||
|
Pre-school only |
105.36 |
80.78 (Border) |
131.12 (Dublin) |
|
Primary Only |
75.54 |
63.03 (West) |
91.33 (Dublin) |
|
Both |
107.37 |
84.89 (Mid-West) |
129.15 (Mid-East) |
|
Total |
97.47 |
79.42 (Border) |
118.96 (Dublin) |
Source: CSO.
The child care sector in Ireland comprises both community based and privately owned centre based services together with a significant element of child care delivered by childminders. In the year 2000, there were about 56,000 centre based child care places in Ireland of which 39,500 were part time places and 17,285 were full time places. It is known that the total funding committed under the equal opportunities child care programme, EOCP, to date will lead to the creation of 31,200 new centre based child care places — 12,704 full-time and 18,496 part-time — when all the projects have been completed. Of these new places, about 12,500 part-time and 8,000 full-time places were completed by end June 2004.
However, my Department does not have the detail of the number of new services which have been developed independently of the EOCP. My child care directorate is currently concluding an update of the key elements of the 2000 census of centre based services and this material will be lodged in the Oireachtas Library when it comes available. It will contain data on a county basis.
In the interim, the Deputy will be aware that detail on the implementation of the equal opportunities child care programme was circulated to all Deputies in the report, Developing Childcare in Ireland, during summer 2004. I expect to lodge an update of these data in the Oireachtas Library later this year.
