Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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543. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth further to Parliamentary Question No. 122 of 26 January 2022, the amount of the estimated €690.9 million annual cost of directly employed staff, pre-Covid-19 conditions, approximately covered by public funding broken down by scheme. [8336/22]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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My Department provides a range of schemes to support Early Learning and Care and School-Age Childcare (ELC and SAC) service providers, and to support parents with the cost of ELC and SAC.

This table provides the 2022 Allocations for my Department's beneficiary schemes:

These figures do not include funding provided under the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS) to the ELC and SAC sector. Employers in the sector have been entitled to access the EWSS, with an exemption from the requirement to demonstrate the 30% drop in turnover that applies to other sectors since August 2020. Between October 2020 and January 2022 the enhanced rate of EWSS equalled €34 million, per month, for ELC providers, covering, on average, 80% staff costs or 50% total operating costs.

From 1 February 2022, the original two-rate structure of €203 per week and €151.50 per week applies; this amounts to €22 million per month for ELC providers, covering, on average, 50% staff costs or 38% total operating costs.

For March and April 2022 the flat rate subsidy of €100 per week will apply and the scheme will end on 30 April 2022; this amounts of €11 million per month in the sector, and will cover, on average, 25% staff costs or 11% total operating costs.

The Transition Fund is a once-off, COVID-19-related measure to support services between the end of the EWSS and the commencement of Core Funding in September.

The 2022 allocation for Core Funding is in respect of the September to December period only. The full-year equivalent allocation for Core Funding is €207 million.

The proportion of a service's income that is public funding varies based on a number of factors. ECCE covers the full cost of the programme and is free to parents, while NCS subsidies depend on parental income. As a result, the proportion of income of individual services that comes from public funding, and therefore the degree to which staff costs are covered by public funding, will vary considerably between services. In addition, these schemes do not provide funding specific to wage costs; as such, it is not possible to provide a breakdown by scheme of the degree to which staff costs are met by public funding.

The table below provides a breakdown of the degree of reliance on parental fees by services, based on data from the Independent Review of Costs.

The Independent Review of Costs found that payroll costs comprise approximately 68% of a service's total operating costs.