The Government has launched a pilot programme aimed at encouraging communities to use local schools as childcare centres outside class hours.
It follows the publication of a report yesterday by the Department of Justice which recommended school premises should be used, when appropriate, as locations for childcare services for schoolgoing children.
Boards of management of schools with extra land should be encouraged to establish "stand-alone" after-school facilities, the report recommends.
However, it adds that school buildings and land should only be used where management authorities were "prepared to make those premises available for a long-term lease or other long-term commitment".
Launching the report yesterday, along with a €45 million funding package for community-based childcare facilities to create an additional 3,800 places, Minister for Justice Michael McDowell said he believed schools could be key to providing extra childcare places without a major building programme.
"The most obvious piece of infrastructure that is available is the huge estate of school buildings around Ireland," he said.
School managers could not be forced to provide such after-school facilities, he said. The pilot programme envisaged local communities coming up with plans to use their own schools.
The concept was to "work from ground up rather than the top down to develop schools as centres of childcare".
"I do believe that it's an option which, once it's available, people will say why didn't we think of this before," Mr McDowell said.
The report offers guidelines for communities to develop programmes, with advice on insurance, types of facilities needed, programmes of care, and training for staff or volunteers.
"There is a good deal more than walking into a classroom," Mr McDowell said.
It is hoped the pilot programme, administered by county and city childcare committees, would lead to at least one pilot project in each local authority area in the country.
The projects would not necessarily mean extra work for teachers or school managers, in that local community groups would take responsibility for running the programmes.
Mr McDowell acknowledged there was resistance from teachers over concerns they would have extra duties.
"I believe at the moment they have many pressures on their time, and I believe that, unless a really worked-out alternative is put up to them as a viable option, you'll tend to find conservative thinking," he said.
Opposition parties criticised the announcement, with Labour's Senator Kathleen O'Meara describing it as "yet another indication of the Government's piecemeal approach to childcare".
"What is really needed is a comprehensive plan to put in place a childcare infrastructure which would meet the needs of working parents and their children, as well as supporting communities responding to childcare needs."