The Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (DCEDIY) has policy responsibility for improving access to high quality and affordable Early Learning and Care and School-Age Childcare.
My Department does not record the data requested, and has no function in this regard.
The current Guidelines for Planning Authorities relating to Childcare Facilities were issued in 2001 by my Department under Section 28 of the Planning and Development Act 2000, as amended. Planning Authorities and An Bord Pleanála are required to have regard to the Guidelines in carrying out their functions under the Planning and Development Act, 2000.
The Guidelines set out a methodology for calculating an adequate provision of childcare places in respect of planning applications for residential development, and were intended to ensure a consistency of approach in this regard.
From a national planning policy perspective, the National Planning Framework (NPF), published in 2018, recognises the importance of the provision of childcare facilities specifying that “the continued provision and enhancement of facilities and amenities for childcare and young people such as childcare, schools, playgrounds, parks and sportsgrounds, remains necessary and will need to be maintained at similar levels for the foreseeable thereafter”.
Furthermore, the NPF includes a specific National Strategic Outcome 10 entitled Access to Quality Childcare, Education and Health Services, while National Policy Objective 31 identifies the requirement to invest in ‘…a childcare/ECCE planning function, for monitoring, analysis and forecasting of investment needs, including identification of regional priorities; The provision of childcare facilities and new and refurbished schools on well-located sites within or close to existing built-up areas, that meet the diverse needs of local populations…’;
The planning system has an important role to play in supporting the development and delivery of adequate childcare services through the inclusion of a mandatory objective in each city and county development plan, as is legislatively required.
DCEDIY has recently established a Supply Management Unit. I understand that a key part of the Supply Management Unit’s remit is to develop a planning function, for monitoring, analysing and forecasting of the supply and demand for early learning and childcare in a nuanced and specific way at local area level.
