Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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Providers participating in Core Funding must adhere to the following contractual requirement in respect of deposits, specifically:

A Partner Service agrees that they will not charge any non-refundable deposits to parents/guardians in the respect of their early learning and childcare service where the parent/guardian takes up the service for which the deposit was paid.

More than 94% of providers are signed up to this scheme this year.

In addition, providers offering the ECCE programme may charge a refundable booking deposit to hold an ECCE place for a child. The maximum deposit a provider may charge is equivalent to four weeks’ of an ECCE payment (i.e. €276). This must appear on the service provider’s fees list. The ECCE deposit must be returned in full to the parent/guardian once the child’s registration is approved by Pobal.

Similarly for the CCSP Saver programme, a provider may charge a refundable booking deposit up to a maximum equivalent to two weeks total payment. The full deposit must be refunded to the parent/guardian once the child’s registration is approved.

Any parent experiencing difficulty or who has a concern that the deposit they have been requested to pay to secure a place are encouraged to contact their local CCC for advice and support.

Contact details for the local CCC’s can be found at myccc.ie/ .

Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance)
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103. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if he will abolish childcare fees in 2024; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19267/24]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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Various schemes under the funding model for early learning and childcare work to ensure children can access early learning and childcare at no or at significantly reduced out of pocket costs to families.

The ECCE programme is available free of charge to all children for up to two years before starting primary school. 96% of children take part.

The NCS complements this programme, providing subsidies to reduce costs to parents for children to participate in early learning and childcare. The Scheme combines universal and income-assessed subsidies.

For some families, the NCS provides free access to early learning and childcare. In particular, the Scheme includes arrangements for specified target groups to receive free access, where referred by a sponsor body.

A review of the Scheme, published in 2021, found that over half of families in disadvantaged areas receiving support under the Scheme had over 50% of their costs covered.

A study of childcare costs by the OECD, published in 2022, covering the same period of the review found that the reforms of childcare support in Ireland provided significantly higher benefits to low-income families, driving the net childcare costs for low-income lone parents close to zero.

Following on from these reports, a number of enhancements were made to this Scheme:

• Removing of the practice of deducting hours spent in pre-school or school from the entitlement to NCS subsidised hours.
• Extending the NCS universal subsidy to all children under 15.
• Increasing the minimum hourly subsidy available under the NCS from 50 cent per to €1.40.