Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Collins for raising this issue and for offering the opportunity to respond, in particular to provide an update on the threat of closures of early learning and childcare services on Thursday, 26 October.

Following a meeting between the Minister, Deputy O’Gorman, and the Federation of Early Childhood Providers, FECP, on 18 October, the Minister has been notified that these closures will now not go ahead. He welcomes this development, given the impact closures have on children and their families. With State funding in early learning and childcare at an all-time high, and set to reach €1.109 billion in 2024, the Minister and Government have demonstrated a strong track record in this policy area.

This funding is delivering two years of free preschool education to all children through the Early Childhood Care and Education, ECCE, programme. It is removing barriers to accessing and participating in this programme and in wider early learning and childcare services through the access and inclusion model, AIM, and the new equal participation model, EPM. It is supporting record numbers of families to offset the cost of early learning and childcare through the national childcare scheme, NCS, with the levels of support under that scheme set to increase again in 2024.

Through core funding, it is investing substantially in services to achieve a number of objectives, including affordability, accessibility and quality, as well as sustainability. For year three of the scheme, the allocation will increase by €44 million, or 15%, allowing further progress to be made across all of these objectives. A sum €9.27 million will support a 3% increases in capacity in the sector in year three of the scheme, driven both by new services joining the sector and existing services offering more places and-or longer hours to families.

The allocation for administration will increase by €3.21 million. The allocation for non-staff overheads will increase by €10.07 million to ensure the scheme continues to keep pace with cost pressures facing services. The remaining €21.49 million will be used for other developments, to be informed by the emerging data from year two of the scheme as well as the financial returns.

It is intended that in conjunction with the targeted measures introduced in September 2023, these developments will improve the financial standing of services and will pave the way for further negotiations to improve staff pay and conditions by the Joint Labour Committee, JLC. The Minister is committed to working with the Federation of Early Childhood Providers, FECP, and other stakeholders who can help inform these developments over the coming months.

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