87. Deputy Roderic O'Gorman asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the engagement she and her officials have had in 2025 with the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage with respect to changing or improving planning rules to ensure delivery of childcare facilities in housing developments; the progress she can report on this; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [61618/25]

Sentiment score: 0.31

One of the most infuriating experiences parents desperate to get a childcare place for their kid have is to be told the building designated as a creche on the plans they bought their new home from actually is not going to be a creche. They are told it has been too expensive to fit out, it is because the developer wants to rezone it as a house and sell it as such or, most infuriatingly of all, there is no demand in the area for crèche spaces. As the Minister has said, the planning guidelines were put in place in 2001 to ensure when developers built a certain number of units, a childcare facility building was put in place but those guidelines are not fit for purpose any more. They are not providing the right number of spaces. They are also often not providing the appropriately designed buildings. When I was in the Minister's role, I put in place a process to address this to get the Department of housing to draft newer, stronger guidelines. Can the Minister give us a sense of when she expects to see those guidelines published?

Sentiment score: -0.05

I know the Department of housing has a huge amount on its plate in addressing the housing crisis but to be honest, it has always been very clear to me that updating these planning guidelines to make developers provide appropriate crèche facilities in new estates has never been a priority for the Department. In the last Government, I got plenty of excuses about why the Department had not done it yet. It had to wait for the new planning Bill - well, that is done now. It had to wait for new planning regulations - it has had a year to pass those. Resolving this issue cannot wait any longer. There are going to be tens of thousands of houses built in the coming years; there must be to address the housing crisis. If we get these guidelines improved, they can contribute to the delivery of thousands of new childcare spaces. The developers are not going to do this themselves and to be honest, the Department of housing is not going to do it itself. It is going to be up to the Minister and she may have to drag the Department of housing kicking and screaming to the table here. Can she give us a clear timeline of when we will see these new planning guidelines published, and when will we see local authorities implement them?

Sentiment score: 0.17