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

The expert group was established in September 2019 to develop a new funding model for early learning and care and school age childcare. The group was tasked with examining the current model of funding and with considering how additional resourcing could best be structured to achieve a high quality, affordable, accessible and sustainable sector. The expert group was independently chaired and comprised national and international experts across multiple fields. It met 21 times. The expert group has now completed its work and its report, Partnership for the Public Good, PPG, was published on 7 December 2021.

Following the Government's consideration and acceptance of its 25 recommendations, work has now commenced on their implementation. I was happy to have the opportunity to meet the chair of the expert group before the Estimates process to allow the emerging recommendations of the group to inform the package of measures announced in budget 2022. We spoke about those earlier. I refer especially to a new core funding stream for services to support improved quality, affordability and sustainability and to support the drawing up of the employment regulation order, which is so important in getting better paper staff. That measure is being introduced. It will be worth €69 million this year, and €207 million in a full year. Participation in core funding will require the services to not increase the fees charged to parents from the rates applied in September 2021.

Budget 2022 also announced an extension in the age of children eligible to access the universal NCS subsidy and a change in respect of the removal of how wraparound hours for NCS subsidies are determined. These measures were also recommended by the expert group. Budget 2022, therefore, began the implementation of the expert group’s recommendations. The full implementation of all its recommendations will be progressed in the coming years, as additional funding is secured through the annual Estimates process. I again emphasise that there is strong agreement across all three Government parties on the importance of including measures in the next budget to address affordability and provide significant investment in NCS to save parents money.

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