Childcare Services

86. Deputy Brendan Smith asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the progress to date in providing childcare places under the building blocks scheme. [78240/26]

I welcome the introduction of the building block grant scheme in 2024. It is important. It gives some financial assistance to both private providers and community-provided services to develop new accommodation or upgrade existing accommodation and expand. One query I have from a number of existing providers in my constituency of Cavan-Monaghan is when the next round of building block grant applications will be put in place. When is the application process likely to be opened with an invitation for applications? What is the likely timescale for the processing and approval of applications?

Improving access to quality and affordable early learning and childcare is a key priority of the Government. Capital funding has been allocated to the early learning and childcare sector under the national development plan, NDP. The NDP was revised last year, as the Deputy will be aware. This will enable significant investment in the expansion of early learning and childcare up to 2030, including through the building blocks capital grant scheme. The building blocks capital grant schemes is open to core funding partner services only. The primary focus of these schemes is to increase capacity in the one-to-three age range for full day care. The building blocks expansion scheme operated in 2024. Under that scheme, funding was made available to applicants to fund renovations or reconfigurations of existing facilities in order to create additional places in areas of the country with identified undersupply. Almost 300 quality, affordable, full-time early learning and childcare places were delivered under this scheme. The first building blocks extension grant scheme closed for applications in January 2025 and is currently in operation. It provides funding to existing services to extend their existing premises or, in the case of community services, to construct or purchase new premises. Projects are now actively under way across the country. The first building blocks extension grant scheme was split into four strands. Private providers could apply for grants of between €50,000 and €250,000 to physically extend their premises, with a matching funding requirement. Community providers could apply for grants of between €100,000 and €500,000 to physically extend their premises. In addition, community providers could also apply for funding of between €300,000 and €750,000 to purchase an early learning and childcare facility or a premises that could be easily adapted for this purpose, or towards the cost of constructing a new premises or installation of a modular building. This scheme is anticipated to deliver up to 1,250 additional quality, affordable, full-time early learning and childcare places over the next year.

I thank the Minister of State for her reply. As the Leas-Cheann Comhairle may recall, in 1998, the equal opportunities childcare programme was introduced. At the time, it was the first major investment in childcare accommodation facilities throughout the country, both assisting private providers and community-led providers, which was a new sector at that time. As the Minister of State is aware, many of the facilities developed from that period onwards are in need of an upgrade now. Many need additional accommodation because of the demand for places. The Minister of State’s Department colleague, the Minister, Deputy Foley, visited Cavan at my request some months ago. She met some of the providers that need to expand because of the demand for places. As the Minister of State said in her initial reply, there is a particular undersupply of childcare places for pre-ECCE children aged up to three. It is important that those providers that are providing the full service are given priority in developing new accommodation or upgrading existing accommodation. More and more investment is needed.

It is absolutely needed, and more and more investment came in this year’s budget for that exact reason. The second building blocks extension scheme will fund projects in 2027 to deliver additional capacity. It recently closed for applications. Under the scheme, community providers could apply for a grant of between €100,000 and €530,000 to extend their existing premises, while private providers could apply for a capital grant of between €50,000 and €265,000. Again, matching funding was a requirement for private providers. Applications for this second building blocks scheme were recently appraised by the Department, with input from the Office of Public Works, OPW. I am anticipating an update on the outcome of this process imminently. The Minister, Deputy Foley, assures me that services will be notified of the outcome of this appraisal process in the coming weeks.

I thank the Minister of State for her further reply. I wish to express the strong interest of childcare providers for the next round of applications to be opened as soon as possible. At one stage, there was an undersupply in our larger, urban centres. Now, there is an undersupply in our rural communities, which is a good thing because there are job opportunities throughout the country, both in rural and urban Ireland. People should not be denied the opportunity to remain in the workforce due to a lack of childcare. It is particularly important as well that we have a good spread of childcare facilities throughout urban and rural Ireland. We have had a good balance in this country between private providers and community-led services. We need to ensure that support continues for both types of providers. In many instances, the community service has been essential because no private provider would have provided childcare services in some of those communities. The community-led service has been of extreme importance and remains so.

I and the Government fully agree. That is why we are investing to both reduce the cost of childcare and ensure greater access to it. As the Deputy rightly pointed out, we need to have balance between community childcare providers and providers under our core funding scheme. This year, for example, not only are we investing in existing providers to help them expand so that they can offer more places to people across the country but we are also investing for the first time in State-led facilities. Earlier this year, €135 million was provided for a ground-breaking initiative to help acquire or fit out childcare as a State-led programme. So far, we have approved seven projects and we will continue to grow that number year on year. The building blocks extension grant scheme, which the Deputy is particularly interested in, has funded 139 extensions throughout the country. We will be making decisions on this new round in the coming weeks.