Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The announcement in September 2022 regarding early years education and childcare was really significant and in later years will be looked back upon with huge pride as a major achievement of this Government. It was a significant focus of the previous general election. All of us in government should be really proud of what we have achieved with regard to core funding. It is a massive step forward. However, the Minister does not want any services to be faced with financial sustainability issues and is fully committed to working with any service to support it in delivering early learning and childcare for the public good, which is what we are all here for.

Special supports are available from the Department where a service is experiencing financial difficulty or has concerns about viability, accessed through local childcare committee. This support can take the form of assisting services with interpreting analysis of staff ratios and cashflow, as well as more specialised advice and support appropriate to individual circumstances. In some instances, financial supports may be deemed appropriate in tandem with the case management process. Once a service engages with its local childcare committee, it will be able to avail of supports through the case management process. Through this process, the local childcare committee and Pobal work together to assess and provide support to early learning and childcare and school age childcare, SAC, services experiencing difficulties. The Minister encourages any service experiencing financial difficulty that would like support to contact the county or city childcare committees to access case management supports.