Minister Zappone secures €8.1 million for childcare capital grants across 2020

Extra spaces and funding to support regulatory compliance priorities for Childcare investment in 2020.

Programmes will be open for applications from early learning and care and school age childcare services in February 2020.

The Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Dr Katherine Zappone TD, is pleased to announce the details of the 2020 Early Learning and Care and School Age Capital programmes. The Minister has secured €8.1 million for childcare capital grants across 2020.

€7.2 million of this will be used for the Early Learning and Care and School Age Capital programmes, an increase of over €1 million on the 2019 capital programme for this sector.

The programmes will be open for applications from early learning and care and school age childcare services in February 2020.

Service providers will be invited to apply for funding under the following strands:

Strand A: Creation of new places for 0-3 year olds – €5.5 million (max. €50,000 per grant).

Strand B: Works required for regulatory compliance for community services – €1 million (max. €1,200 per grant).

Strand C: Creation of new school age places – €700,000 (max. €20,000 per grant).

The funding objective is the continued expansion of early learning and care places for 0-3 year olds, and to create additional places for school age childcare.

Funding is also being made available to support community/not-for-profit early learning and care services in addressing issues identified during the process of Tusla re-registration.

Commenting on the launch of the Capital fund, Minister Zappone said:

The capital programme will be administered by Pobal on behalf of the department.

Further information on the application process, including detailed application guidelines, will be made available to services in February 2020.

Childcare providers are encouraged to contact their local City/County Childcare Committee with any queries on the programme and the application process.

Contact details and links to websites of all local City/County Childcare Committee can be found on www.myccc.ie.