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

In 2018, the Crowe consultancy group was commissioned by my Department to undertake a sustainability review of a small cohort of early learning and care and school-age childcare services operating in disadvantaged areas. Through this review, Crowe also engaged with parents using these services. A key objective of the review was to examine the potential impact of the national childcare scheme, NCS, which was under development at the time. It was never intended to publish a report of this sustainability review as it contains commercially-sensitive data relating to the services that participated.

All recommendations emerging from the steering group overseeing the sustainability review were adopted and implemented in full by my Department. This includes an increase in standard NCS-subsidised hours from 15 hours to 20 hours per week, which was introduced in September 2019 and an increase in enhanced NCS subsidised hours from 40 to 45 hours per week, which was also introduced in September 2019. The recommendations also included a continuation of and enhancement to sustainability funding to ELC and SAC services, which remains in place.

Since I became Minister, and following my engagements with childcare providers across the country, further consideration has been given to the early learning and care and school-age childcare services needs of children from disadvantaged areas, once the NCS, including NCS sponsorship arrangements, were introduced. In this context, arising from a review of the NCS that I specifically asked to consider disadvantaged services, a review of the work study test and recommendations set out in Partnership for the Public Good, a number of changes to NCS were announced in budget 2022. Significantly, these included the discontinuation of the practice of deducting hours in preschool or school from NCS subsidy hours. This measure will benefit an estimated 5,000 children in disadvantaged areas.

Other recommendations in Partnership for the Public Good will further support services operating in disadvantaged areas. We discussed earlier that Core funding, which will be introduced in September, has been designed to meet objectives with this in mind.

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