Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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692. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the total percentage of State spending and parental spending in 2021 and 2022 on early learning, care and school-age childcare, in tabular form. [24434/23]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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The Department does not gather data on parental fee income to early learning and childcare services other than occasional research studies, e.g. the independent review of costs. The independent review of costs undertaken by Crowe in 2018 on behalf of my Department found that approximately 40% of the total income to the sector comes from parental fees. This percentage varies significantly across services. Many services rely entirely on State funding while others services rely exclusively on parental fees.

Core Funding Partner Services will be required to provide financial returns in late 2023 detailing their income and costs, which should provide up to date insight in to the financial operations of services.

State spending on early learning care and school-age childcare in 2021 and 2022 is as follows:

(Note: The 2022 outturn figure will be published at end of September when the Appropriation Accounts for the Vote are published at end September 2023.)