Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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705. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the percentage of the €19 million budget that has been committed to the affordable childcare scheme. [32199/17]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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As previously announced, the Affordable Childcare Scheme (ACS) will not commence this September. This is an extremely complex and ambitious project because of all that is involved – legislation, new business processes, data protection and building a new ICT system. It requires integration of data from the Department of Social Protection and the Office of the Revenue Commissioners so that the ICTsystem can calculate every family’s net income and ACS subsidy. We are all keen to see the new system introduced as soon as possible, but the sheer complexity of the project means that it will take some time. I do not want to introduce the new scheme before all elements – legislation, ICT and business systems – are fully in place and rigourously tested.

However, I do not want to delay the benefit of higher childcare subsidies for families. For that reason, major improvements in childcare subsidies will come into effect this September, within the framework of the existing childcare schemes and utilising the additional funding secured in Budget 2017 to honour the Government’s commitment to deliver more affordable childcare to families.

The improvements this September will include increases of up to 50% in targeted childcare subsidy rates, improving access for parents in lower income families by significantly reducing the co-payment required. In addition, the new universal childcare subsidy for children aged from six months up to entry to the ECCE Programme will be available from September, in line with the announcement I made following the Government’s Budget decision in October 2016. This non-means tested subsidy is available to tens of thousands of children and is worth as much as €1,040 per year towards the cost of childcare for the families of children of this age cohort.

The level of universal subsidy available this September is the same as that proposed for the ACS subsidy, i.e. a maximum subsidy of €20 per week for full-time childcare, with the subsidy for part-time childcare reduced pro rata. The levels of targeted subsidy available this September, while not identical to the subsidy-rates that are proposed for the ACS, will be broadly similar to those rates, with some families receiving slightly more and some slightly less than they will receive when the ACS is introduced. These differences are inevitable given the structure of the existing childcare schemes, which involve only a limited number of subsidy-bands, whereas the ACS will allow a smooth taper to be applied to subsidy-rates.

I am satisfied that the new measures commencing this September will honour the Government’s commitment to delivering more affordable childcare to families. The majority of the €19 million additional funding provided in Budget 2017 is being directed towards these changes and will deliver significant reductions in childcare bills for tens of thousands of families. A portion of this funding was allocated to the development of the ACS and continues to be used for this purpose.