Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 7 December 2004
283 Ms B. Moynihan-Cronin asked the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform if his attention has been drawn to the difficulties being experienced by a community based child care facility (details supplied) in County Cork following a shortfall of €100,000 in his Department’s staffing grant; his proposals to assist this group; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [32471/04]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe Deputy may be aware that the community-based group in question was awarded a staffing grant of €170,000, over two years, in April 2004. The grant brought the amount of staffing assistance approved for the project to €235,000, over three years. The amount of staffing grant assistance was considered to be appropriate to the level of service being offered and the level of disadvantage in the area. The group was awarded capital grant assistance of €1,000,000 in December 2002.
The Deputy should note that support towards staffing costs under the equal opportunities child care programme is made available to projects which can demonstrate that they provide child care in areas of significant disadvantage and that they help disadvantaged parents to access employment, education or training. It is not intended that the programme will meet the full cost of running a service. The programme makes available staffing grant assistance for a period of time, usually three years, to enable projects to move towards self-sustainability, which is normally achieved when the service operates at capacity and has introduced an appropriate fee structure.
In a number of services, the levels of disadvantage among parents is such that the families are unable to pay economic fees. Therefore, a limited number of services are likely to require ongoing State support towards their staffing costs. The Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform is reviewing the arrangements for the ongoing support of such services in very disadvantaged areas. It intends to introduce new arrangements to support very disadvantaged services which have already received three or more years of grant assistance, with effect from 1 September 2005.
