Some £250 million will be spent on co-ordinating the provision of childcare over the next seven years, the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, has announced. The Department, which has been charged with co-ordinating the provision of funding on childcare up to 2006, will have £20.475 million to spend on its childcare programme next year.
This includes the first tranche of funding (£13.7 million) from the National Development Fund and is an increase of 416 per cent on this year's allocation.
Announcing details of new structures to co-ordinate childcare provisions, the Minister said the development of childcare in Ireland had been ad-hoc, variable in quality and in short supply.
"It is imperative that the unprecedented increase in funding for childcare is properly co-ordinated and delivered to those areas which will most benefit from the additional funding," he said. The £250 million would be targeted at initiatives aimed at increasing the quantity of childcare places and improving quality - from a social inclusion and equal opportunities perspective - said the Minister.
He went on to outline the structure his Department intended to establish "which will have three separate but interlinking co-ordination roles". An interdepartmental committee on childcare would oversee and co-ordinate childcare initiatives from all the Departments funding childcare. A national co-ordinating childcare committee would oversee the development and delivery of funding for childcare infrastructure and a number of county childcare strategy groups would focus on the childcare needs of the local area, he said.
"It is my intention that promotion of the new measures will commence shortly and that the application system devised will be open, clear and accessible to potential applicants," he added.
He said also that his Department would soon be promoting a number of childcare initiatives to expand the Equal Opportunities Childcare Programme and to develop support for voluntary childcare organisations.
