Childcare Services Dail Éireann — 2026-09-17 ============================================================ Norma Foley (FF), Kerry To be clear, proposals to the city or county childcare committees are not all from providers. They can be from anyone. Deputy Wall will appreciate that there has to be some form of a process and the first line of the process has been identified to be the local on-the-ground mechanism of the county and childcare committees. It is free to anybody to make a proposal. In the first instance, this year we are looking at provision of buildings and primarily where a building might be available. I am aware that community groups have stepped forward, as have individuals. The proposals can come from anywhere and there is an openness in the city and county childcare committees to look at any proposal that comes their way. Of course we will look at other opportunities as well. There are opportunities through local authorities. We are very open to working with anybody who has a viable proposal. In the first instance a preliminary business case will be made and then a full business case. To assure the Deputy, the process remains open. If anybody wants to step forward we are very happy for consideration to be given to the proposal. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-17/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:48+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-09-17