Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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137. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs his plans to provide for additional capital funding towards the development and expansion of community childcare centres. [40655/20]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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My Department has, since 2015, administered an annual capital funding programme, under which early learning and care and childcare services can access capital funding.

The purpose or target of the funding is determined on an annual basis having regard to the needs of children, families and service providers and Departmental priorities. Additional funding has frequently been assigned to for community services, to enable them to improve and expand their services.

Whilst regularly in recent years an objective of the funding has been to extend capacity, private and community services, in 2021, I am responding to a different need.

COVID has reduced demand for some early learning and childcare services, and although this will hopefully be reversed soon, there is no evidence at this time of a need to increase capacity. Also, the rapid expansion we required in recent years, for example, to almost double ECCE places to accommodate a second year, has been delivered.

Given my absolute priority to keep children safe, I have decided that first call on the 2021 funding will be given to ensuring fire safety in early learning and childcare services around the country.

Tulsa, the independent regulator of the sector, requires that providers submit a fire safety certificate as part of the statutory registration process. Many services have already re-registered and submitted a fire safety certificate and some have re-registered subject to submitting an up to date Fire Safety Certificate in 2021. Some services may need to carry out remedial works to receive a Fire Safety Certificate, but the costs for this can be prohibitive, especially in the current extenuating circumstances of COVID.

As such, my Department and Pobal will offer a Fire Safety Capital Grant in early 2021 to contribute towards the costs of required remedial works. The total 2021 early learning and care capital grant of €8.3 million will be available for services, both community and private business operated, for fire safety works. Further details will be made available in the coming days.

If any of the €8.3million available is not required for this purpose, my Department will distribute the balance by way of a second round of grants, which will focus on outdoor play. Further detail on this will be announced in early April 2021.

Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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140. To ask the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the number of early childhood education and care facilities that have indicated that they will exit the sector since they were closed in March 2020. [40778/20]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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The Tusla Early Years Inspectorate is responsible for maintaining the register of early years services. At present there are just under 4,700 services registered with Tusla. This includes both Early Learning and Care (ELC) and School Age Childcare (SAC) services. All services that wish to operate in the State must register with Tusla. Similarly, services are statutorily required to notify Tusla if they intend to close their service permanently.

Every year some services close and some new services open. It is important to note that, overall, there is no significant variation in the number of services operating in 2020 when compared with 2019, and that overall capacity in the sector has been rising steadily for several years.

Between January and October of this year 186 services that were on the Early Years register reported permanent closure to Tusla. This compares with 166 for the same period last year. Tusla has also advised that 79 new services have opened, compared to 87 over the same period last year. This is a very positive figure considering the challenges of opening a new business during COVID.

Tusla also advise that 12 standalone school-age childcare services have closed this year. There is no comparable data for 2019 as registrations only began during 2019.

Throughout the pandemic a primary focus of my Department has been, and remains, on sustaining the ELC and SAC sector. We have kept over 99% of services open by funding the additional costs associated with following public health guidance, the cost of lower occupancy, and through encouraging greater uptake of places.

The key new contributor to the ELC and SAC sector is the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme, with its new enhanced rates of up to €350 per week per staff member. These enhanced rates cover 80% of a service's payroll costs, before they earn income from parents or Government. The standard rates covered / will cover 50% of payroll costs. The EWSS is secured for the sector until 31 March next, with the enhanced subsidies due to cease at the end of January. I will continue to work to ensure that the needs of the sector are recognised in any reforms of the scheme thereafter. Previous financial supports offered since March 12 included ex gartia scheme payment, the Temporary Wage Subsidy Childcare scheme, a capital grant and a reopening grant. It is estimated that the Exchequer will have invested an additional €200m in the sector over the course of 2020 in order to achieve the important objectives of retaining both places and staff.

Where providers were / are struggling with an imminent threat to the viability of the service arising from a demonstrated decline in occupancy and/or demonstrated increase in costs due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, that was not addressed by the many financial supports put in place, my Department made available financial support in the form of COVID-19 Sustainability Support funding. This sustainability funding was / is available to both private, for-profit providers and community non-profit providers, subject to eligibility criteria and an assessment of need. The second application window for this fund in 2020 closed on 30 November 2020.

In addition to the COVID-19 Sustainability Support, my Department oversees a case management process through which local CCCs and Pobal work together to assess and provide support to early learning and care services and school-age childcare services in difficulty. This can include help with completing and interpreting analysis of staff ratios, fee setting and cash flow, as well as more specialised advice and support appropriate to individual circumstances. Pobal co-ordinate the overall case management process, with the CCC administering initial, and on-going, case management assistance. The CCC, where appropriate, will proceed to make a formal notification to Pobal which will provide more consolidated support while verifying the service’s necessity for a financial intervention. All services which require support should contact their local CCC in the first instance.