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

I recently announced a range of measures that will be introduced this September to make child care more affordable for thousands of families throughout Ireland. This honours a key commitment in the programme for Government.

I am putting in place measures to ensure that parents of up to 70,000 children due to benefit under the affordable child care scheme will be given the opportunity to avail of increased subsidies from September. This will be achieved by significantly increasing the subsidy rates for the community child care subvention and the training and employment child care schemes, in some instances by as much as 50%. There will also be a new universal, non-means-tested child care subsidy that will benefit parents with children between the ages of six months and 36 months.

These measures mean that the families of up to 70,000 children can look forward to benefiting from increased child care subsidies starting from this September. There will be a public information campaign late in May for parents and providers and a new website outlining the measures being introduced in September will launch shortly.

I remain strongly committed to introducing the promised affordable child care scheme. My Department has made good progress in this regard. The Government has approved the heads of Bill for the scheme, and officials are working intensively to plan for the successful implementation of the scheme. However, I am conscious that this is a complex project which we must get right from the beginning. We need to have the legislation, business processes and a new robust IT system in place. We will need to test the scheme rigorously to ensure it works properly so that families can quickly see their entitlements.

I have already referred to the fact that I am hopeful that the Bill on the affordable child care scheme will be published before the summer recess. I cannot guarantee this but the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel and my Department are working very hard to make it a reality before mid-July.

My officials are working as quickly as possible but I believe it is prudent to take time to ensure we get the new systems right so that they operate smoothly for everyone.

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