Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue and for offering the opportunity to respond. I am taking this on behalf of the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy O’Gorman, who regrettably could not be here this morning and sends his apologies.

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 the Government have demonstrated a strong track record in this policy area. This funding delivers two years of free pre-school education for all children through the ECCE programme. It is removing barriers to accessing and participating in the programme and wider early learning and childcare services through the access and inclusion model, AIM, and the new equal participation model. It is supporting record numbers of families to offset the cost of early learning and childcare through the national childcare scheme, with the levels of support under that scheme set to increase 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 3 of the scheme, the allocation will increase by €44 million or 15%, allowing further progress to be made across these objectives. There will be €9.27 million to support a 3% increase in capacity in the sector. The allocation for administration will increase to €3.21 million. The allocation for non-staff overheads will increase by €10 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 that will improve the financial standing of services and pave the way for further negotiations to improve the pay and conditions of those working in the sector. These developments will be informed by data from year 2 of the scheme as well as the financial returns.

To support small and sessional services, the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, introduced a number of targeted supports in year 2 of core funding to improve the sustainability of these services, specifically the flat rate of up to €4,075 for sessional-only services and a minimum base rate allocation of €8,150. These measures saw the average allocation of core funding to sessional-only services increase by 32% this year. In a continued commitment to supporting these services, these targeted measures will continue to apply in the 2024-2025 programme year.

A number of safety nets are also in place to ensure all services can remain sustainable and are adequately supported. The Department oversees a case management process through which each local city and county childcare committee, CCC, and Pobal work together to assess and provide support to all services experiencing difficulties and through which the sustainability funding will be granted should the need arise. If any service has viability concerns, its representatives are encouraged to reach out to their local CCC to start availing of those supports.

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