Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael)
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16. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the funding that was provided to childcare services in Cork under the ECCE programme since the beginning of 2020; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28568/21]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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ECCE is a two-year pre-school programme available to all children. The programme runs from September to June each year. ECCE is not mandatory, but participation rates are very high, with 95% of children in the eligible age range attending.

Pobal administers the ECCE programme on behalf of my Department, and they have informed me that there are 880 services providing the ECCE Programme in Cork city and county. Currently, there are 12,130 children availing of the ECCE Programme across these services.

Payment under the ECCE programme is by way of capitation, payable directly to services in respect of each eligible child enrolled. The total funding allocated to these 880 services for the period 01 January 2020 to 21 May 2021 was €43.7m.

Since the onset of Covid-19, there has been some changes to ECCE funding owing to various Covid-19 restrictions.

Over the initial closure of services in 2020 (from 12 March-29 June), funding under the ECCE programme and other DCEDIY schemes was redirected towards the Temporary Wage Subsidy Childcare Scheme.

Since September 2020, in addition to capitation provided under the ECCE Programme, all services were eligible to avail of the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS), which at current rates, covers up to 50% of services operating costs.

The ECCE Programme closed over 6 January to 8 March 2021, when services were restricted to children of essential workers and vulnerable children only.

Over the period 6 - 31 January, services continued to receive full ECCE funding, in addition to EWSS.

From 1 February -7 March, ECCE funding was reduced to 70% for closed services but was maintained at 100% for open services.

The continuation of ECCE funding during that period, and other supports provided by my Department, was conditional on services retaining staff, continuing to engage with children enrolled on the Programme and waiving fees where children were not accessing a service.

The ECCE programme resumed on 8 March 2021, with no significant drop in enrolment rates. Moreover, there is strong evidence of the effectiveness of Covid-19 supports, with the data on services that have closed and opened in 2020 are directly comparable to 2019.