Parents with children living in emergency accommodation will be provided with free childcare from next month.
Katherine Zappone, the children’s minister, said that €8.25 million had been allocated to the programme. It will launch in Dublin before being extended to other areas of the country.
Children under the age of five will qualify with the aim of helping parents to transition to permanent accommodation through employment.
“In addition to assisting the parents, it is my hope that the steps we are taking today will bring stability to the lives of the very youngest affected by this crisis,” Ms Zappone said, referring to the increasing numbers of families living in emergency accommodation.
“We will give them a place where they can play and learn in comfort and security, and where they can form friendships that will develop over time.”
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Childcare businesses will be given a flat rate of €110 per child per week for a daily meal and to cover the cost of 25 hours of care.
However, Early Childhood Ireland, a group that represents providers, said that this was not enough.
“What we would expect with an age range from 0 to 5 years old is a tiered approach for such a scheme, which must reflect the different cost of providing services across the age groups in line with the higher ratios of carer-to-child for babies, versus toddlers, versus four-year-olds,” Teresa Heeney, the group’s chief executive, said. “We intend facilitating a consultation with our members in Dublin to identify centres with the capacity to accommodate extra childcare spaces, and with the facilities to make hot food.”
Focus Ireland, the housing charity, will work with Ms Zappone’s department to identify families that may be eligible.
“Families with school-age children can choose a provider near the school, or near the accommodation unit they are currently in. We are encouraging childcare providers to co-operate and allow children to enter into the facility at any point throughout the year,” Catherine Maher, the charity’s national director of services, said.
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Transport to and from the childcare facilities will not be offered as it is hoped that the centres will be near the child’s emergency accommodation.
Places can be booked for a block of four weeks, and then extended or transferred if the family has moved to a different accommodation unit.
Anne Rabbitte, Fianna Fail spokeswoman on children, said that she has concerns about the scheme operating successfully in Dublin because of how frequently families are moved around accommodation units.
“The four-week block is unsettling because many families can only book emergency accommodation on a night-by-night basis,” Ms Rabbitte said.
“I think the scheme would do well in smaller cities like Galway and Limerick, but in Dublin the practicality seems to have been overlooked. Most homeless families are residing in units within the city centre, and I have doubts over the availability of places at the facilities near these units.”
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The scheme will be available for 50 weeks of the year and will come under the umbrella of the affordable childcare scheme, which launched in October and is worth €35 million.
Also included is a means-tested subsidy for children aged between 6 months and 15 years and a universal subsidy for all children aged between 6 months and 3 years.