Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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I am committed to the ongoing success of the National Childcare Scheme (NCS) which continues to benefit increasing numbers of families across Ireland. Uptake of NCS subsidies has grown yearly with 182,776 children benefitting from the Scheme in 2023. This represents an increase of 48% on 2022. I envisage further growth in 2024.

This growth is driven, in part, by recent changes introduced to the Scheme including the extension of age eligibility for universal subsidies and increases to the minimum hourly subsidy. The minimum hourly subsidy rate is set to increase again in September 2024 from €1.40 to €2.15 – further benefitting families across the State who avail of the Scheme.

My Department and Pobal, the Scheme Administrator only hold individual information on children registered for early learning and childcare subsidy schemes (mainly NCS and ECCE). Neither DCEDIY or Pobal hold information on children who are not registered for NCS or ECCE, or who avail of a service not offering NCS or ECCE.

In addition, it should be noted that whilst some services only provide ECCE, most full-day services also provide ECCE only options. It would be not be possible from available data to differentiate between parents opting to only use ECCE hours and parents who pay entirely privately for extra hours.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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The Pobal Annual Early Years Sector Profile (AEYSP) provides a detailed overview of the Early Learning and Care (ELC) and School-Age Childcare (SAC) sector in Ireland, including the numbers of children in receipt of state subsidies, information on ELC and SAC fees, staff wages, qualifications and turnover.

In December 2023 the Department launched the Early Learning and Childcare Data website, replacing the traditional paper-based AEYSP report. The website provides a new and innovative way of displaying administrative data as well as survey data collected annually from over 4,400 early learning and childcare services across the country, supporting evidence-informed policy development and planning.

This new website will include a series of interactive dashboards that will be released by Pobal on behalf of the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (DCEDIY) over the coming weeks and months.

Released sequentially, the first iteration of this new dashboard will see the 2021/22 data published alongside the 2022/23 data. As the dashboard is still under development the ‘Service Overview’ section is currently available with more information including in relation to fees, being made available in the coming weeks.

In 2020/21, which provides the most recently published Pobal Annual Early Years Sector Profile data, the average weekly fee nationally per child for full day care was €186.84, for part-time was €110.92 and for sessional care was €74.20. The fees for all types of provision remained almost the same, with less than 0.5% change for all types of care compared to 2019/20. It should be noted that this fee data is prior to the application of any subsidies.

Table 1: Average weekly fee by county and type of care provision

(full day, part-time and sessional)

County	Full day	Part-time	Sessional
Dublin – Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown	€244.08	€139.10	€84.71
Dublin – Fingal	€214.30	€121.96	€76.81
Dublin – South Dublin	€214.08	€127.90	€78.69
Dublin – Dublin City	€213.85	€127.16	€78.60
Wicklow	€213.36	€126.92	€77.65
Cork City	€204.36	€113.73	€76.58
Cork County	€193.53	€118.22	€77.15
Kildare	€191.68	€120.02	€77.78
Meath	€191.52	€112.35	€73.87
Westmeath	€181.83	€107.48	€79.32
Kerry	€181.01	€103.43	€67.01
Kilkenny	€179.66	€103.86	€71.81
Louth	€178.37	€117.06	€73.30
Wexford	€177.69	€103.99	€73.85
Waterford	€175.61	€101.27	€71.30
Limerick	€175.48	€103.54	€72.52
Laois	€174.89	€100.88	€73.62
Donegal	€174.24	€95.35	€68.25
Galway	€173.56	€105.61	€70.97
Offaly	€173.33	€112.98	€71.81
Clare	€172.00	€102.13	€72.20
Tipperary	€166.71	€99.25	€71.68
Sligo	€165.64	€97.02	€78.20
Leitrim	€163.81	€89.58	€69.85
Roscommon	€161.94	€99.36	€72.13
Cavan	€160.88	€95.39	€69.21
Mayo	€160.68	€95.02	€69.28
Longford	€159.17	€92.92	€71.65
Monaghan	€153.42	€87.76	€65.52
Carlow	€152.08	€88.36	€71.27
Overall average	€186.84	€110.92	€74.20

The National Childcare Scheme (NCS) provides two types of subsidies available to all children aged between 24 weeks and 15 years who are attending registered childcare:

• a universal subsidy of €1.40 per hour
• an income assessed subsidy which is means tested and is calculated based onthe applicant’s individual circumstances. The subsidy varies depending onthe level of family income, parent work status, the child’s age andeducational stage, and the number of children in a family

All families accessing registered early learning and childcare receive a minimum hourly NCS subsidy of €1.40. This minimum hourly rate will increase to €2.14 from September of this year. From this date, any family on the universal or income assessed subsidy who was not already at the maximum hourly rate under the Scheme will see an increase in their subsidy. For those who receive an income assessed subsidy, the amount of the increase will taper down as they approach the maximum hourly rate. The exact reduction in costs will be unique to each family depending on their individual circumstances, and their early learning and childcare needs.

The Scheme has an hours based design and is designed to fit around the needs of families. The family agrees the number of hours to be used with their provider and (within overall scheme limits) these hours are registered with the scheme administrator. The amount paid under the NCS is based on the actual hours of childcare used.

The standard weekly ECCE capitation is €69.00 for the 2023/2024 programme year. Where a child is availing of additional care in a part-time or full-time service the approved provider must reduce the fees paid by the parent/guardian by a minimum of €64.50.