Child-care workers will collect children from school and help them with their homework in new projects to help disadvantaged parents take up full-time jobs or training. The service will be provided by 25 community child-care centres to be grant-aided by the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform.
In the first two years of the scheme, the centres will receive £40,000 a year each from the Department. Smaller amounts of assistance will go to another 90 community child-care projects. In addition, grants are to be paid to eight child-care projects developed by groups of employers who are members of IBEC. These will receive £1 million between them.
The bulk of the 115 community child-care projects will be located in disadvantaged areas. Twenty-five will be regarded as "flagship" projects which will provide an all-day child-care service to enable parents to engage in full-time work or training.
If the children are of school-going age, the service will collect them from school and help them with their homework.
The projects will be staffed by part-time workers on the Community Employment Scheme. They will be given specialist child-care training. It is expected that most of them will qualify as professional child-care workers and will take up careers in the area. The projects will charge parents for their services according to their means.
The scheme "is targeted particularly at parents in disadvantaged areas and those on low pay who cannot access training, education and employment opportunities due to lack of affordable good quality child-care", according to the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr O'Donoghue.
An official at the Department said the projects would eventually become viable, and funding could then be switched to new projects.
The flagship projects will be located in a wide range of areas including Cork, Dublin, Ennis, Galway, Limerick, Dundalk, Mullingar, Wexford and Valentia Island.
Companies taking part in the scheme to provide child-care facilities for employees include Aer Rianta, Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin, Esat Digifone and Digital.
The Department official said companies had been eager to respond to the opportunity to participate in the project. The Department had approached IBEC and had been impressed by its enthusiasm for the scheme.