Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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168. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if his attention was drawn to the anomaly within the national childcare scheme where parents who are paying their childcare provider for full-day attendance but who leave their children at the facility for shorter hours are, in the cases whereby the childcare provider uses the NCP app, receiving less subsidy and therefore paying more childcare costs than if they were to leave the child for longer hours; if he intends to resolve this anomaly; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5119/23]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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The National Childcare Scheme is designed to be flexible and acknowledge that childcare needs differ widely across different families. A core design of the scheme is that parents and providers agree the number of hours of childcare required. The subsidy amount reflects those agreed hours e.g. a child receiving 20 hours of eligible early learning and childcare will receive a greater subsidy than the same child receiving 10 hours subsidy. This ensures a full-time subsidy is not being paid in respect of a child utilising a part-time place, and that the investment is following the child.

Equally early learning and childcare providers are private entities and set their own fees, sessions and admissions policies which are agreed with or offered to a parent.  As such there may be instances where a session includes hours which a parent is paying for but does not avail of. In these instances, the subsidy would reduce with the sessional fee remaining unchanged. 

I appreciate that there may be a disconnect between the number of weekly hours of childcare that parents require versus the types of services a particular provider offers (e.g. part-time or full-time sessions rather than an hourly rate). However, the Scheme has been designed with some level of flexibility in relation to the reporting of attendance to reflect the reality of parent's lives:

1. Providers can round up part hours of daily attendance to the next whole hour. This means that if a child attends 4 hours and 1 minute or more it is recorded as 5 hours of attendance.

2. The rules of the Scheme allow for some fluctuations in actual attendance over a number of weeks without penalty. Parents will agree weekly hours with providers and the overall total weekly attendance is reported to the Scheme Administrator. However, if they pick up early in a given week, this will not affect their award, or the subsidy received. It is only if continual under-attendance is recorded for a consecutive 8-week period that a notification to review the hours awarded and change them if it doesn’t resolve in the next 4 weeks is issued. If the under-attendance occurs over a consecutive 12-week period, the subsidised hours will be adjusted to reflect the average hours of actual attendance going forward. However, if the child attends for their agreed hours for a full week after this warning is issued no further action is taken.

3. The Scheme also provides for particular exemptions to the attendance rules under certain circumstances to allow for extended absences in exceptional circumstances.

The above flexibilities go some way towards off setting the problems arising from providers offering only sessional services.  At present parents should discuss the hours of childcare they require with their providers and ensure they are receiving the appropriate subsidies.