The Department of Children has received almost 70 applications to its new capital investment fund for childcare, with just eight buildings set to benefit in 2026 or early next year, an Oireachtas committee has heard.
Minister for Children Norma Foley told the Joint Committee on Children and Equality that she expects the eight beneficiaries of State funding to be providing childcare to one- to three-year-olds by the end of this year or early next year.
The department recently announced €135 million worth of capital investment in buildings for high-quality, accessible State-led early learning and childcare under the National Development Plan until 2030.
In her opening statement, the Minister said “capital funding will be used to acquire or fit out buildings”.
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She said there has been a “wide disparity of readiness” in the applications received so far.
She said €14 million will be spent in the first year and this will increase in the following years as the department looks to build facilities as well as purchase.
The State-led Early Learning and Childcare Capital Programme will begin by supplying services to one- to three-year-old children as “this is where the need is greatest”, she said.
She added that it will provide a “full service”, meaning the provision would “meet the needs of those children as they progress”.
Criteria are in place to determine which eight buildings are purchased and/or fitted out by the Government, including targeting the most in-need age groups, areas that are undersupplied , disadvantaged or rural areas, accessible location, areas that can provide a minimum of 100 places and “approximate” costs, she said.
[ Facilities for up to 800 new childcare places to be acquired by State in 2026Opens in new window ]
The Minister said the department wants to ensure the service is “sustainable in an area”.
“The most important thing is to meet the need of the area.”
She described that States’s approach as “hands on” and said “never before had the State taken that leadership”.
“The State stepping in, is to compliment what is already there,” she added.
She said staff are the “most valuable resource we have” and because of that €90 million has been provided over the past two years “specifically directed to improving wages for staff, retention, all of that”.
The Minister said that given that only up to eight buildings will be chosen in the first year, “it will be the miracle of the loaves and fishes at this point, but we have to start somewhere”.
She believes the Government will “learn a great deal” from this first year and expects to “ramp it up as the years go on”.
