Early Childhood Care and Education
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-26
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Emer Higgins (FG), Dublin Mid-West

I am glad to hear that some of the policies the Minister is pursuing and introducing may be of benefit to the Deputy in his constituency, but most importantly, the parents and children in his constituency. Up to eight buildings will be selected for investment this year, and the State-led initiative will provide thousands of places up to 2030 using the €135 million provided in the national development plan. The level of investment will ramp up over the lifetime of Government. The initial approach is on purchasing and refurbishing buildings given that this is a faster route to delivery in the short term. However, the option of new building facilities will also be considered over subsequent years. The Deputy highlighted two specific sites in Rush and Lusk that would be worth looking at from this perspective. The Department is assessing sites and buildings and, where required, will seek expressions of interest from operators to deliver State-led services. Local city and county childcare committees will be supporting the development of these projects in the first instance. Community early learning and childcare operators, local authorities, developers or others who might have some suitable premises, projects or sites should, therefore, first contact their local city and county childcare committee. I would encourage the Deputy to put the owners of those sites in touch with his own contacts locally.
Separately, following on from the success of the building blocks extension grant scheme, a further scheme will open for applications later this year. The round of capital funding will focus on funding extensions to existing premises to allow for increased numbers of children to be offered places on a full-time basis. Community and private providers that are core funding partner services will be eligible to apply for this scheme, and the Minister expects to announce details of this next building block scheme in the coming weeks.
On some of the Deputy's comments, I will firmly put on the record that the Government is absolutely committed to reducing childcare costs. Affordability is really important from the parents' perspective but so too are accessible childcare and ensuring that we have the right amount of childcare in the right locations. Quality needs to be paramount. In a previous role, I was Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and signed into law one of the EROs the Deputy referenced. I wish to put on record my support for that process.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-26/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:42+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-26