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

I propose to take questions Nos. 14 and 15 together.

Significant investment is being made by my Department to support parents with the costs of early learning and childcare. The national childcare scheme, NCS, is currently supporting thousands of families to offset their costs. A recent review of the NCS showed that 38% of families had more than half their early learning and childcare costs covered by the NCS.

Some 56% of families had more money to spend due to the scheme and 28% of families were working more because of the NCS, with 8% reporting that they would not be in work at all without it. I recognise that the burden on some families remains high and we will need to do more to ensure affordability and sustainability. I outlined earlier the package of measures we are bringing forward in core funding of €221 million in a full year to support early learning and care and school-age childcare services. This will have a primary impact on affordability because the payment of this additional money is linked to a commitment to a fee freeze by childcare providers which will immediately bring about some degree of certainty for parents.

In budget 2022 we have also extended the universal NCS subsidies for children of all ages up to 15. Previously the universal subsidy only applied up to the age of three and now it applies to the age of 15 which we estimate will benefit approximately 40,000 children in the course of a full year.

Since August 2020 early learning services been able to access the employment wage subsidy scheme, which has allowed many of them not to increase their fees. We have seen that the previous very high increases in childcare fees did not manifest in the years 2020 to 2021. It is important to recognise that more money needs to be invested in the national childcare scheme and all three parties in government are committed to doing so. I hope to be able to begin that process in budget 2023.

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