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

I thank the Deputy. Every year it is normal for some early learning and care and school age childcare services to close, while other new services open. Services close for a wide variety of reasons, including retirement of owners or other personal circumstances. Tusla is the independent statutory regulator for the sector. Services intending to close must notify Tusla within 28 days of closure.

The numbers of reported closures for the period 2017 to 2021 and to date in 2022 are as follows. The numbers of closures in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and to the end of April 2022 were 117, 138, 196, 197, 141 and 32, respectively. Across that same period, 449 new services opened.

On school age childcare, the data are not available prior to 2020 as there was not a registration requirement. The numbers of closures in 2020, 2021 and to the end of April 2022 were 13, 23 and eight, respectively. From 2020 to the end of April 2022, 1,544 school age services were registered. I reiterate, however, that as 2021 was the first year in which they had to register, that requirement obviously drove that significant spike.

As I mentioned earlier in reply to these questions, my Department is currently leading an ambitious programme of reforms in the ELC and SAC sector. This reform agenda is underpinned by a significant increase in investment with the additional €78 million I secured in budget 2022 bringing investment in the sector to a record €716 million.

We will continue to build on this in budget 2023 and into the future and as I have indicated before, in this year's budget my focus is on reducing the cost for parents by increased investment in the national childcare scheme, which is the direct subsidy each parent receives and which reduces the amount such parents have to pay to their provider.

See this speech in context