€18-million capital grants scheme for early learning and childcare sectors - Lowry

Deputy Michael Lowry has welcomed the announcement today of an €18 million Capital Grant Scheme for the Early Learning and Childcare Sector.

The Building Blocks Capacity Expansion Grant Scheme is part of the wider Building Blocks Capacity Grant Scheme for Early Learning and Childcare under the revised National Development Plan 2021-2030 (NDP). It was announced last week by Roderic O’Gorman, Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth.

The primary focus of the Expansion Grant Scheme is to increase capacity in the 1-3 year old (pre ECCE) age range for full-day or part-time care. This will be achieved by funding projects that reconfigure or internally renovate existing Early Learning and Childcare services to accommodate additional children in this age category.

Projects of between €50,000 and €100,000 will be funded to deliver additional capacity, for example, where services can renovate or upgrade existing space to cater for more children.

This Grant will be open to both private and community-based services, under the following conditions:

Private Providers can apply for funding between €25,000 and €50,000. Community Providers can apply for funding between €50,000 and €100,000.

Match funding will be required for privately owned services, with a maximum contribution by the Department of 50% of total project costs. Match funding will not be required of community-led services.

In order to be eligible for grants, services must commit to increasing their service provision by at least five places for 1-2 year olds or at least six places for 2-3 year olds (pre ECCE) , or to increase capacity over both age cohorts to a minimum of 6.  places for children in other age brackets may also be eligible for funding once the minimum requirements are met. 

Minimum requirements for the number of hours of provision per week and weeks per year will also apply.

A key feature of the scheme will be a check to ensure that fees charged by services applying do not exceed a maximum fee threshold.  This is to ensure that Capital Investment does not result in the delivery of places that are unaffordable to parents.  

The maximum fee threshold has been determined using data on fees from the Pobal Early Years Sector Profile and applying a statistical technique, Tukey’s Fence, to identify outliers from the normal range of fees. 

Accounting for variation in the range of fees charged, a ‘fence’ is established.  Any fee values above the fence are classified as outliers.  The method was applied to the data for the country as a whole for both full and part time fees.

The maximum fee threshold for full time care is €295 per week and the maximum fee threshold for part time care is €190 per week.

The Department and Pobal have jointly developed a Relative Demand Model using the latest census data and information on existing provision and enrolments, as well as CSO data on commuting patterns, to generate insights into the extent to which existing levels of supply meet local demand across the country. This analysis will enable the funding to be targeted to where it is most needed.

Applications are ready to be opened with closing date of 3 rd  April. Services will be notified of the outcome of their applications in June.