Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats)
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1154. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the steps she is taking to prevent crèches operating under the affordable childcare scheme from increasing the fees they charge to parents; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [35645/18]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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In determining their fees childcare providers must take account of amongst other things, rates, rent, labour costs, and insurance. The cost to parents to access childcare is set by childcare providers who must factor in these overheads.

Notwithstanding this, I am committed to ensuring that childcare is affordable, accessible and of a high quality.

My Department monitors the cost of childcare closely and will continue to do so. Research from a sampling of services showed that fee increases across all services delivering full-time childcare rose by €7.13or 4.3% per weekon average between 2015/16 and 2016/17 following a number of years of price stagnation. Further more up to date information is currently being compiled in respect of the 2017/2018 programme year. This will be published in November and I do not expect a significant increase in the average fee figure.

In addition €18.65m was allocated to providers in Programme Support Payments in June and July 2018. The Programme Support Payment is intended to recognise the important role that childcare providers play in the delivery of childcare subvention schemes to families within their services. This may include for example costs associated with administrative work, time spent assisting parents in understanding how they can most benefit from the DCYA-funded schemes or other non-contact activities. Programme Support Payments were made available for both the ECCE programme and the targeted CCS related schemes.