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

Crowe was commissioned by my Department to undertake an independent review of the cost of providing quality early learning and care and school-age childcare in Ireland. Planning is under way to launch the report and I intend that this will occur before the end of this month.

Crowe's brief included analysing the current costs of providing early learning and care and school-age childcare and the factors that impact on these costs; the delivery of a model of the unit costs of providing early learning and care and school-age childcare that allows analysis of policy changes and variation in cost-drivers, and the provision of a high-level market analysis of the sector in Ireland.

The review was intended to provide a robust evidence base for the further development of high-quality early learning and care, ELC, and school-age childcare, SAC, in Ireland. The outputs, including the costs calculator developed through this project, were also intended to form a key input to the setting of capitation and subvention rates for ELC and SAC.

Final outputs were received in January of this year, and preparations were under way to launch the report in April 2020. The launch, however, like so many things, was postponed due to the Covid pandemic.

The findings from this review contributed to the evidence base that underpinned the temporary wage subsidy childcare scheme and was later used in looking at the employment wage subsidy scheme, which we have spoken about and which has provided so much support across the sector.

The findings also informed the development of funding packages for the phased reopening of these services since late June.

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