Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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1200. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the steps that he is taking to ensure that childcare is affordable and accessible for all parents; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30415/22]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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Improving early learning and childcare affordability for parents is a key priority, along with increasing quality and accessibility for children.

Significant investment is being made by my Department to support parents with the costs of paying for early learning and childcare and to support providers with the costs of delivering early learning and childcare.

The National Childcare Scheme is currently supporting thousands of families to offset their costs. A recent review of the NCS showed that:

- 38% of families had more than half of their early learning and childcare costs covered by the NCS;

- 56% of families had more money to spend due to the scheme; and

- 28% of families were working more because of NCS, with 8% reporting that they would not be in work without it.

I recognise however that the burden on some families remains high and we need to do more to ensure affordability and accessibility. The major programmes funded by my Department that contribute to affordability and accessibility for parents include the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Programme, the Access and Inclusion Model (AIM) and the National Childcare Scheme (NCS).

The universal ECCE pre-school programme provides for free access to early learning and childcare for 15 hours per week for the two years before children start primary school. This significantly offsets the costs to parents of early learning and childcare at this stage.

An estimated 95% children in the relevant age cohort participate in this programme.

The Access and Inclusion Model provides a range of both universal and targeted measures, to support children with disabilities to take part in the ECCE pre-school programme in mainstream settings, and to help make pre-school services more accessible and inclusive – benefiting all children in those services.

The NCS provides universal and income-assessed subsidies to parents. A universal subsidy for children up to three is available for up to 45 hours per week. An income-assessed subsidy is available for children of all ages for up to 45 hours per week, the level of which is determined by the family’s income. The NCS is designed to be highly inclusive and to meet the needs of those families who need it the most. The NCS is based on the principle of progressive universalism and has regard to the best interests of children.

An Expert Group to develop a new funding model for the early learning and childcare sector examined the current model and made recommendations to Government in December which were accepted in full. This new funding model is now beginning to be implemented to improve quality, affordability, sustainability and accessibility of services.

The package of measures for the sector announced in Budget 2022 was informed by the Expert Group recommendations. The package includes a new Core Funding stream valued at up to €221 million in a full year. Making early learning and childcare more affordable to parents and improving quality including through better terms and conditions for the workforce are key objectives of Core Funding, along with improving services' sustainability.

A central condition of Core Funding is that providers agree not to increase fees above those which were charged last year. This will give parents greater certainty about what they will be charged and ensure that increases to NCS subsidies are not absorbed by fee increases. The approach to fee management will be developed further over time.

Budget 2022 extended universal NCS subsidies for children of all ages up to 15 and this will come into effect for the new programme year. Budget 2022 also changed how ‘wraparound hours’ for NCS subsidies are determined, essentially offering greater numbers of subsidised hours to families where not all parents are in work or study. This change is already in effect. The Expert Group report also recommended increasing the NCS rates and this will also be implemented for future years.

Ensuring no fee increase, in tandem with developments to the NCS will together deliver improved affordability for parents.

As outlined, I am committed to putting in place a strong foundation to improve affordability and accessibility for parents and sustainability for services, as well as improved quality of provision, including pay and conditions for the workforce. This foundation will allow for further developments in future years which I plan to build on further.