Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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610. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the number of school-aged children registered under community childcare subvention plus from September 2020 to December 2020; and the number of school-aged children registered for the period September 2019 to December 2019. [44708/20]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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My Department does not have information on the number of children attending school aged childcare as childcare providers are not required to provide data on the number of children who attend early learning and care or school aged childcare on a private fee paying basis.

My Department does have data on the number of children attending services based on age who are receiving subsidies under various funding programmes run by my Department. It is not possible to readily identify children who are attending school as well as childcare, so the purpose of this query, the number of children over 4 is used as a proxy for school aged children, as this is the age from which children are able to start school.

In relation to Community Childcare Subvention Plus (CCSP), 21,754 children over 4 were registered from September 2019 to December 2019 and 10,554 children over 4 were subject to a renewed CCSP application from September 2020 to December 2020.

It should be noted that the take up of school aged childcare between September 2019 and September 2020 are dropped sharply, due to the impact of Covid-19.