Louth’s €30k funding boost for school age childcare
School age childcare services across the county are set for a boost after a €30,000 fund was announced last week.
The fund is set to benefit seven projects in total across Louth including locally the Lios na OG playgroup at St. Joseph’s School which has been awarded almost €5,000, ‘ The Cabin’ at Realt na Mara N.s, which received €4,000, St. Nicholas N.S pre-school (€4,360), and Ready, Steady, Grow at Corcreaghy (€2,764).
Louth TD Fergus O’Dowd said ‘I welcome the funding of just under €30,000, made available by the Government to help improve the quality of school age childcare in County Louth, under Pobal recommendations in funding for strand c projects, to help increase school age childcare services.’
He said this was part of a nationwide allocation of €1.2 million from the School Age Childcare Capital Scheme announced by the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Dr. Katherine Zappone today.
‘ This funding builds on the recent allocation of just under €100k in July in strand A and B funding to help new and existing services to increase the number of childcare places that they provide here in County Louth.
In total Louth is receiving €125k in funding this summer alone to increase capacity and improve the quality of childcare services.’
‘Improving the quality of existing school age childcare services was one of the key actions of the Action Plan on School Age Childcare, published in March.
‘Examples of how we do this given by Minister Zappone include the provision of age appropriate play equipment to stimulate children mentally and physically.
The idea of this is to try to replicate the home environment for children where they need to avail of childcare afterschool.’