John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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719. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs her plans to ensure that early child care providers offer the Government's more affordable childcare scheme to parents; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [32948/17]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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On 11th April, I made an announcement about a range of measures that will be introduced by my Department to make childcare more affordable for thousands of families throughout Ireland. This honours a key commitment in the Programme for Government.

These measures are being put in place to ensure that parents of up to 70,000 children due to benefit under the Affordable Childcare Scheme will be given the opportunity to avail of increased childcare subsidies from September. This will be achieved by significantly increasing the subsidy rates for the Community Childcare Subvention and the Training and Employment Childcare Schemes, in some instance by as much as 50%. There will also be a new universal, non-means tested childcare subsidy that will benefit parents with children aged from 6 months until they are eligible for ECCE.

While it is ultimately a matter for each individual service provider to make a decision on whether or not to enter into any contract, my Department has undertaken a coordinated online and postal information campaign targeting both childcare providers and parents with key information about the measures. My Department, along with Pobal and the City/County Childcare Committees also conducted public information “roadshows” to build awareness and encourage providers to sign up the September measures.

In addition, I have recently announced a payment for non-contact time to services who sign up to the September measures. The payment to providers is intended to make a contribution towards the administration and non-contact costs involved in providing my Department’s childcare programmes. In particular, the new funding recognises the time providers need to spend familiarising themselves with the new affordable childcare measures, including, signing contracts, meeting regulatory and compliance requirements and assisting parents with understanding how they can most benefit from the various childcare programmes available

The measure provides for a payment equivalent to an additional seven days’ funding for services. €3.5m has been allocated for this purpose.

I am very aware that delivering these enhanced childcare supports is only possible because of the commitment and co-operation of more than 4,000 childcare providers throughout the country. I want to acknowledge their continuing support in this regard.

John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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720. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs her plans to alleviate the amount of unpaid hours early child care providers will spend due to increased administration with the roll out of the Government's more affordable childcare scheme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [32949/17]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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I recognise that the childcare programmes require administration. I announced in June that an additional €3.5m in "non-contact" payments is being made available to services who sign up to the September 2017 more affordable childcare measures. This non-contact time payment for the period from September 2017 recognises the additional administrative demand on childcare providers in terms of:

- Time of provider required to familiarise themselves with new Grant Agreements.

- Participation in information events, consulting with City/County Childcare Committees (CCCs), and advisors associated with the childcare provider’s business (e.g. accountants, legal).

- Attending training sessions with the CCCs / Pobal on the schemes and PIP.

- Speaking to parents about the schemes and answering their questions.

- Administrative time to, for example, sign contracts and engage with Pobal’s IT system (PIP), register children on PIP, meet statutory obligations re data holding, make changes to published fee schedules as required by Pobal.

- Following up with parents who have not provided necessary documentation

- Verifying children’s attendance and meeting compliance obligations for all universal and targeted scheme beneficiaries.

The value of the payment will be equivalent to 7 days of the total value of registrations under CCS (including Universal CCS) and TEC programmes.

This is in addition to the payment currently available for drawdown by services on foot of Budget 2017, where I secured €14.5m towards "non-contact time". I understand that the majority of services have now been paid, an average of over €2,000 under this scheme.

I would also like to highlight that when my Department prepares for each programme cycle, we try to appropriately balance the need to account for public monies with the administrative burden this places on childcare providers. We will continue to work towards the most efficient system in this regard balanced against those key requirements.