Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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Each childcare provider who operates the ECCE programme must have a Service Agreement with my Department. One of the terms of this Agreement is that the Agreement may be terminated by either party by serving 3 months written notice to the other party. It follows that the childcare provider should inform the parents as soon as is practicable after serving notice to my Department.

Closure of facilities is a normal factor of the administration of the ECCE programme. Childcare providers find it necessary to close or relocate for many reasons. My Department funds 30 City and County Childcare Committees (CCCs) to assist both parents and childcare providers in matters relating to childcare such as closures and relocation of facilities. Ordinarily, when notice has been given of a closure, a CCC immediately carries out an assessment of local availability of childcare places in other services in the proximity of the affected services and works with parents to assist them in making alternative childcare arrangements. It is a priority of my Department that all children registered in the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) free pre-school year receive their full entitlement during their period of entitlement.

My Department is working with the childcare sector to prepare for the significant expansion to pre-school provision under the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme announced in Budget 2016, commencing September 2016. The Department is in the process of rolling out a number of measures to increase the supply of ECCE places across Ireland from that time. This expansion will see the number of children benefitting from the Programme rise from around 67,000 to around 127,000 in a given programme year. From September 2016 both the standard and higher rates of capitation for the ECCE programme will increase by €2 per child, per week; and the rules relating to higher capitation rates will also be reformed to enable more services to benefit from the higher rate.

My Department made detailed information available to the CCCs at the beginning of this year indicating the number of children, by every electoral division across the country, who would be eligible for an ECCE place in September 2016, January 2017 and April 2017. The Department is working closely with the CCCs to match this data against reported capacity in the sector to meet the increase in demand, and to develop action plans for areas where a shortfall in supply may be identified.