Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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1090. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs her views on whether it is fair for early years services that sign a contract with her Department for the provision of childcare schemes to sign these contracts in advance of receiving a copy of the programme and funding rules for the programme year. [3985/20]

Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent)
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My Department does not require early learning and care providers to sign contracts for the various childcare programmes in advance of receiving a copy of the programme and funding rules.

In order for service providers to be eligible to receive subsidies in respect of childcare funding programmes, it is a condition that they enter into a funding agreement with my Department prior to the commencement of the programme year in August. This is in accordance with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform Circular 13/2014 entitled Management of and Accountability for Grants from Exchequer Funds.

For the last three programme years, the rules for the childcare funding programmes have been released prior to the commencement of the programme year. Service providers have the option to sign the funding agreement any time before the commencement of the programme year. The following table shows that the rules document was published with sufficient time for service providers to familiarise themselves with its contents.

The process of signing contracts is completed online via the Programmes Implementation Platform.