Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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The Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme is a free universal two-year pre-school programme available to all children within the eligible age range. It provides children with their first formal experience of early learning prior to commencing primary school. The programme is provided for three hours per day, five days per week over 38 weeks per year and the programme year runs from September to June each year.

Based on data captured through the Early Years Sector Profile Survey 2021/22 (gathered in Spring 2022 with a response rate of 82.5%) – extrapolated to take account of all services delivering the ECCE programme – the number of ECCE places in Dublin Central was 1,988. Data collection for the Early Years Sector Profile 2022/23 is currently underway and will give an updated position for Dublin Central.

For the current programme year (September 2022 – June 2023), there are 108,482 enrolled on this programme nationally.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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The availability of high-quality early learning and childcare is a key Government priority. The Department monitors early learning and childcare capacity on an ongoing basis, with a particular focus on responding to the unmet early learning and childcare needs of families.

The annual data captured by Pobal on behalf of my Department - through the Early Years Sector Profile Survey - is one important data source that allows us to monitor supply and demand. In addition to this survey data, my Department also relies on data from the register of services held by Tusla, data provided by services as part of their application for Core Funding and has also conducted several surveys with parents. Since 2020, five parent surveys have been undertaken by Ipsos MRBI on behalf of the Department.

Data captured from the 2021/22 iteration of the Early Years Sector Profile, indicated that the vacancy rate in Dublin City is 15% and is 16% on average across the country. This data does not take account of increases in capacity since the introduction of Core Funding. Data collection for the 2022/23 Early Years Sector Profile is currently underway and will give an updated position.

A series of steps are being taken to address issues of undersupply.

The network of 30 City/County Childcare Committees across the country are in a position to match children and families to services operating with vacant places and engage proactively with services to explore possibilities for expansion among services, particularly where there is unmet need.

Under the National Action Plan for Childminding, there is a commitment to open up access to the National Childcare Scheme (NCS) to parents who use childminders following the extension of regulation to childminders.

Some €70m has been allocated to my Department through the revised National Development Plan (NDP) – with the majority of this funding earmarked for new places.

My Department, in partnership with the Department of Housing Planning and Local Government, is in the process of updating the 2001 Planning Guidelines for Local Authorities on Early Learning and Childcare Settings. As part of this work, my Department has been included in the updated list of prescribed bodies that need to be notified on certain planning matters, including the formulation of County Development Plans and Local Area Plans.

In addition, Core Funding - introduced in September 2022 - has already proven to be effective in expanding capacity, particularly in areas of undersupply and additional funding secured in Budget 2023 for year two of Core Funding provides further opportunity to invest in a further 3% growth in capacity .

Parents experiencing difficulty in relation to their early learning and childcare needs should contact their local City/County Childcare Committee (CCC) for assistance. Contact details for CCCs may be found on www.myccc.ie.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 148 and 152 together.

In instances where a service has concerns about their sustainability, the first step in obtaining support is for the service to reach out to their local City and County Childcare Committee (CCC).

Once a services engages with their local CCC they will be able to avail of supports through the case management process. My Department oversees this process through which local CCC’s and Pobal work together to assess and provide support to ELC and SAC services experiencing difficulties. This support can take the form of assisting services with interpreting analysis of staff ratios and cash flow, as well as more specialised advice and support appropriate to individual circumstances. In some instances, financial supports may be deemed appropriate in tandem with the case management process.

As a new development to the suite of supports available, a further stand of sustainability funding is now available to Core Funding Partner Services, both community and private, who are experiencing financial difficulty. As with previous strands of the Sustainability Fund, it focuses on the provision of operational as well as short term financial supports where appropriate, and will assist services in managing their immediate financial difficulties, providing advice to support their long term sustainability, while transitioning to a more sustainable model of service delivery.

My Department, Pobal and the CCCs continue to closely monitor trends concerning services entering case management and will continue to maintain the availability of Sustainability Funding for individual services at risk. If any service has sustainability concerns, I would encourage them to reach out to their local CCC to start availing of supports through the aforementioned case management process.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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The Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme is a free universal two-year pre-school programme available to all children within the eligible age range. It provides children with their first formal experience of early learning prior to commencing primary school. The programme is provided for three hours per day, five days per week over 38 weeks per year and the programme year runs from September to June each year.

The table provided below is based on data captured through the Early Years Sector Profile Surveys 2020/22 (gathered in Spring 2021 with a response rate of 57%) and 2021/22 (gathered in Spring 2022 with a response rate of 82.5%) – extrapolated to take account of all services delivering the ECCE programme in Dublin Central.

-	2020/21	2021/22
ECCE vacant Places	252	256
ECCE enrolled Places(places currently occupied)	1,676	1,732
ECCE overall capacity	1,928	1,988

The calculations assume ECCE places apply to children in the following age ranges:

• 3 years+ to 4 years
• 4 years+ to 5 years (Non-school going)
• 5 years+ to 6 years (Non-school going)

Data collection for the Early Years Sector Profile 2022/23 is currently underway and will give an updated position for Dublin Central.

For the current programme year (September 2022 – June 2023), there are 108,482 enrolled on this programme nationally.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme is a free universal two-year pre-school programme available to all children within the eligible age range. It provides children with their first formal experience of early learning prior to commencing primary school. The programme is provided for three hours per day, five days per week over 38 weeks per year and the programme year runs from September to June each year.

Based on data captured through the Early Years Sector Profile Surveys 2020/22 (gathered in Spring 2021 with a response rate of 57%) and 2021/22 (gathered in Spring 2022 with a response rate of 82.5%) – extrapolated to take account of all services delivering the ECCE programme – the number of ECCE places had grown by 60 places (3%) in Dublin Central over this period. Data collection for the Early Years Sector Profile 2022/23 is currently underway and will give an updated position for Dublin Central.

For the current programme year (September 2022 – June 2023), there are 108,482 enrolled on this programme nationally.