More than 100,000 childcare places are to be created by 2016 under a new social inclusion strategy to be launched by the Government later this month.
The Irish Timeshas learned that the National Action Plan for Social Inclusion also promises to create 17,000 childcare training places to ensure there are enough professionally qualified people in the system to teach and run childcare centres.
The 10-year plan - which is an update of the National Anti-Poverty Strategy - includes a package on education and commits to dramatically improving literacy levels in disadvantaged areas.
It promises to reduce the number of pupils with serious literacy difficulties in disadvantaged areas from the current rate of 27-30 per cent to under 15 per cent by 2016. It also pledges to ensure that 90 per cent of the population aged 20-24 will have completed "upper second level education", or further education, by 2015.
Building on Towards 2016 and the new National Development Plan (NDP), the National Action Plan For Social Inclusion will outline a comprehensive framework for implementing a streamlined approach to tackling poverty and social exclusion. The plan was cleared by the Cabinet last Wednesday and will be launched by the Minister for Social Affairs, Séamus Brennan, and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern shortly.
It has a strong focus on employment as the best way of tackling poverty and includes €50 million of incentives to encourage 100,000 people on social welfare to join the workforce.
Of that figure €15 million will be used for back-to-work training schemes for long-term unemployed. While the training and education programmes are to be mandatory, nobody will be forced into employment subsequently.
There will be a special focus on providing lone parents and people with disabilities with education and training opportunities. The target is to provide opportunities for 20 per cent of those of working age (16-65) on passive long-term welfare payments to move to employment during the lifetime of the plan.
Childcare and the provision of adequate childcare places is seen as a highly important issue and the new report points out that one quarter of the current population - around one million - are children, 450,000 in primary school and 340,000 in secondary.
The report says that the child population in the State will increase by 100,000 by 2016. The NDP, published two weeks ago, includes a chapter dedicated to social inclusion with funding of almost €50 billion aimed at reducing remaining levels of poverty through targeted actions and early interventions.
Mr Brennan said the measures outlined in the NDP are a central element in an overall approach as part of the new 10-year National Action Plan for Social Inclusion.