Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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1683. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the funding provided in her Department's estimates for 2017 for the affordable childcare scheme; the percentage of childcare providers that are participating in the scheme; the projected expenditure to the end of 2017; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [38684/17]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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The Affordable Childcare Scheme was profiled for €42m in the 2017 estimates. On 11^thApril I made an announcement that the Affordable Childcare Scheme would not commence this September but that a range of measures would be introduced in September by my Department to make childcare more affordable for thousands of families throughout Ireland. This honours a key commitment in the Programme for Government.

As part of these 'September measures', a new universal subsidy is available for all children aged between 6 months and 3 years of age (or until they qualify for ECCE if later than 36 months) in registered childcare. This amounts to as much as €20 a week or €1,040 per year for children in full time childcare. The ‘September measures’ are currently estimated to cost €12.4m to the end of 2017. This figure relates to the introduction of the Universal payment and the increase in band rates across the different strands of the Community Childcare Scheme (CCS).

I am pleased to inform the Deputy that as of 7^thSeptember, 2,792 services are in contract to provide Community Childcare Scheme Plus (CCS Plus). The Universal Provision along with the targeted provisions are also provided under this arm of the CCS. This represents over 75% of eligible providers, based on the numbers of providers who have previously contracted with the Department (excluding those who only provide the ECCE scheme). Any service who was previously in contract for any of my Department’s childcare schemes can renew their contract via an online system (“PIP”); this process is virtually instantaneous. The vast majority of providers are in this position.