Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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607. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if his attention has been drawn to local creches and after-school childcare facilities cancelling childcare spaces due to staff shortages as a result of Covid and the cost-of-living crisis; the efforts that his Department is taking to review the situation and to assist families in need of a childcare place; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39496/22]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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Services must inform the Department if they close the entire service and they may be given Force Majeure permission to close if the closure is outside of their control, such as power cuts or extreme weather.My Department can, at its discretion, continue to provide funding to services which have closed on Force Majeure grounds.

If a service reduces its hours, and is contracted to provide any of the Department funding schemes, ECCE, NCS or CCSP, they are required in their funding agreements to notify parents and amend their service calendar at least 4 weeks in advance of the change of hours.

If a service has not done so, the parents should, in the first instance, contact their local County Childcare Committee who can escalate the case to the Department if necessary.The CCCs are funded by the Department and act as the Department’s local agents in each county.

If a service reduces it hours without reducing parental fees,they would be considered to be in breach of Transition Funding, which requires providers not to increase their fees over the amount charged in September 2021. The local CCC will consider parents complaints in the first instance.

If the service reduces its ECCE hours, it will be in breach of the ECCE funding agreement, which requires them to provide 3 hours of ECCE a day, for 182 days of the year. If a room closure or reduced hours would result in this level of service not being provided, they will be required to make up the hours.

Parents should contact their local CCC who can escalate the case to the Department if necessary.

Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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608. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the number of closures of childcare facilities that have been notified by county and based on service provision that ECCE-only, ECCE-full-time and so on; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39497/22]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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As the subject matter of the Deputy's question relates to an operational matter for Tusla, I have referred the matter to them for a direct reply.

Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats)
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609. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the number of childcare providers that are not engaging in the Transition Fund; the supports that are in place for those families who will not receive capped childcare costs given the rising cost-of-living; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39505/22]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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Ensuring the availability and affordability of early learning and childcare for parents is a key priority for Government.

The Transition Fund is a temporary, once-off scheme to support providers between the end of the Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme in April and the introduction of the new Core Funding Scheme in September. The primary objective of the Transition Fund is to ensure that fees to parents do not increase.

Participation in the Transition Fund is optional, but I am very glad to see that as of 12 July, 4,076 providers, which represents 95% of all eligible providers, have signed up. Only 239 eligible providers are not signed up to the Transition Fund.

The Transition Fund remains open to new entrants to sign-up for the remaining months of operation and City and County Childcare Committees are available to support providers who have not yet signed-up.

The Transition Fund requirement that fees remain at or below September 2021 levels continues in September under the new Core Funding scheme. Under Core Funding, Partner Services will also be required to offer the National Childcare Scheme and/or the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Programme to parents.

Taken together, this will benefit parents by ensuring that the full affordability effects of the NCS are felt. This will give parents greater certainty about what they will be charged and prevent increases in NCS subsidies being absorbed by fee increases.

The NCS is supporting thousands of families to offset their costs and Budget 2022 has expanded access to the NCS by ending the practice of deducting time in pre-school and school from NCS subsidised hour and by extending universal NCS subsidies for children up to age 15.

A recent review of the NCS showed that:

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

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

- 28% 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 too high and more needs to be done to ensure affordability.

The introduction of Core Funding in September, combined with developments to the NCS, will improve affordability for parents. Importantly, it provides a platform for additional investment in this coming Budget.

The high uptake of the Transition Fund bodes well for the introduction of Core Funding in September. This is further underscored by the fact that 89% of providers have now completed a survey which is the first step to coming into contract for Core Funding.

While my Department cannot mandate providers to participate in schemes, every effort has been made to carefully design the schemes to meet the policy objectives, including achieving high levels of participation by ensuring that the schemes are attractive to providers. There is strong evidence of this, both through the level of Transition Fund uptake and the early indications in relation to Core Funding.