The Government is considering measures to encourage new childminding services including start-up and development grants and allowing spare school classrooms to be used for childcare.
The Taoiseach said yesterday that the Government was considering grants to help new childcare providers buy toys and equipment.
He has also asked that the extension of supports to providers with over 20 places be examined, and that a basic technical grant be considered for all commercial childcare providers.
Only 60 applications for funding from a new State childcare scheme have been received in the three months since it was announced, with just 1 per cent of the money available under the £250 million scheme allocated so far, the Minister of State at the Department of Justice, Ms Mary Wallace, revealed yesterday.
"We are anxious to allocate more of the money, but we need more completed applications," she said.
Ms Wallace was speaking at the announcement of the first 30 allocations of funding by the Minister for Justice Mr O'Donoghue.
Mr O'Donoghue acknowledged that Ireland was "a long way behind many of our EU partners as regards the development of quality child care" and that this new scheme was a "catch-up exercise".
The Equal Opportunities Childcare Programme (2000 - 2006) aims to increase the number of childcare facilities and places and to improve the quality of childcare. The spending of £250 million and a further £40 million added earlier this month, will involve "by far the most significant expenditure on childcare provision in the history of the State," Mr O'Donoghue said.
The grants announced yesterday are being given as capital grants to six community based organisations (totalling £1,035,744); staffing grants to 10 community based services (£1,525,524 million); and capital grants to 14 private childcare providers (£234,594).