Lisa Chambers (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

611. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the reason childcare providers receiving payment from the ECCE scheme were paid on 23 November 2018 and have been told there will be no payment in December and will not be paid again until January 2019. [50547/18]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The payment date for the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme that the Deputy refers to, the 23th of November 2018, is an advance batch payment for the 5 weeks between the 26th of November 2018 to the 28th of December 2018. The next batch payment date will be the 7th of January 2019, which will cover the weeks between the 31st of December 2018 and the 1st of February 2019. The 2018/2019 ECCE payment schedule was released on the PIP portal to service providers on the 14th of August 2018.

A key change that has been implemented by my Department this year is that payments are being made on a more frequent basis. There are now ten payments spread across the payment year, an increase from eight the previous year. The increase in frequency and regularisation of payments is to help assist childcare providers to forecast and manage their service's finances throughout the programme year.