Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

As of 18 July 2016, there were 739 children availing of the after-school child care programme. This equates to 318 after-school places. Of the 450 parents who are registered for ASCC this year, 29 have used their 52-week maximum allowance.

For parents who have used their maximum allowance, the community child care subvention programme and the community child care subvention programme, private, may be options. Both of these provide funding to child care services to enable them to provide quality child care, including after-school care, at reduced rates to low-income working parents. Parents qualify as disadvantaged or being on low incomes on the basis of means-tested entitlements.

Further details of these programmes are available through the city and county child care committees. The after-school child care programme has a budget of €1.5 million for the 2015-2016 academic year and has capacity to provide 340 whole-time equivalent after-school places annually. Each eligible parent is given a maximum allowance of 52 weeks of ASCC. This allocation does not have to be used consecutively but when it is exhausted, the parent's eligibility ceases. ASCC child care places are subject to availability and are allocated on a first-come-first-served basis. The programme pays child care services €40 per week for an after-school place or €80 per week in situations where the child care service provides a pick-up service that collects or brings the child to and from school. The programme also provides a full day-care rate of €105 per week, for a maximum of ten weeks, to cater for school holiday periods. In all cases, the maximum fee payable by parents is €15 per week per child.

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