Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

In terms of closures, there were 115 early learning and childcare, ELC, closures in 2023 and then 52 stand-alone school-age childcare facilities in 2015. Therefore, the total number closures in 2023 was 167. That was the lowest number of closures in the previous five years. Importantly, however, between early learning and childcare and stand-alone school-age childcare, 296 services opened in that period, so there was a very significant net increase in the number of services in 2023. Looking back, it is one of the lowest numbers of closures per year and one of the highest number of new services per year in 2023.

On the point about Crowe report, I remember that was one of the first things I did when I was elected to the Oireachtas. When I started, that report was the big thing. We talked a lot about the financial returns, there was criticism of the level of detail required and we made significant changes. However, the core reason we are looking at those is to get better information about the degree to which services' income comes from parental fees versus the national childcare scheme, NCS, and the other funding streams. That is the best way because the Crowe report was, at the end of the day, an analysis of a sample - a large sample but, nevertheless, an analysis of a sample - whereas the returns are that literally everyone who uses core funding is telling us what proportion of their overall income is coming from parental fees. That is going to be hugely important when we get that information. That is why we are looking for that information. It is so that we can get a very detailed understanding of how different services get their income and how it is going to be different across an 11-child early childhood care and education, ECCE, service versus maybe a 50-child full day childcare service. That will allow us to target our core funding and extra investment in core funding in the years going forward.

We have 94% uptake on core funding at the moment. I think the Chair said it was around 265 services.