Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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297. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the amount of funding that was allocated to early years sector; and the amount of this allocation that was drawn down to mitigate the impact of Covid-19, in tabular form. [27057/22]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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From the onset of Covid-19, my Department and the State more broadly put in place a range of supports for Early Learning and Care and School Age Childcare (ELC/SAC) services. The objective of these supports were to:

- support providers’ sustainability to enable services return to normal once restrictions were lifted;

- support providers to retain their staff;

- ensure that ELC/SAC could reopen and remain open, even at very low levels of occupancy;

- ensure that ELC/SAC could operate safely for children, families and staff;

- ensure that increased costs associated with public health requirements, and lower demand/occupancy were not passed on to parents; achieve administrative efficiency through the continued use of existing funding schemes and other whole of economy supports; and

- protect exchequer investment.

Supports in 2020 included:

- The Temporary Wage Subsidy Childcare Scheme (6 April – 28 June 2020); which was layered on top of the Revenue Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme (TWSS) and provided a top-up for wages of eligible early learning and care and school-age childcare staff and a further payment to be used towards ongoing/non-deferrable operational costs such as rent, insurance and ICT.

- The Reopening Funding Package, (29 June – 23 August 2020), which included a once-off Reopening Support Payment (RSP), a once-off Covid-19 capital grant.

The table below shows the ELC/SAC 2020 allocations and the amounts drawn down for the ELC/SAC sector across DCEDIY subsidy schemes and Covid-19 supports.

In 2021, the Department provided supports under the Covid-19 Operating Support Payment, as follows: