Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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97. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if he is aware of an increase in providers leaving the core funding model; the steps his Department is taking on this issue (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18852/24]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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According to recent data from Pobal, 28 services have withdrawn from Core Funding this year.

Of these services, 15 have permanently closed and 13 continue to operate. I am aware also that three other services have notified Pobal of their intention to withdraw from the Scheme in the coming weeks.

Providers that withdraw from Core Funding remain eligible, in this programme year, to continue to offer the ECCE programme and the National Childcare Scheme.

While my Department cannot mandate providers to participate, every effort has been made to carefully design Core Funding to meet a range of policy objectives, including achieving high levels of participation by providers.

95% of providers participated in year 1 of the Scheme and to date, 94% or over 4,300 providers have signed up for Core Funding in year 2. There are more providers, in absolute terms, contracted to the Scheme this year compared to year 1 and applications are still open and continue to increase.

It is a matter for providers to decide whether they wish to withdraw from Core Funding, the significant financial supports it offers to providers and the certainty it provides to parents through the associated fee freeze. However, I am confident that given the level of investment in this Scheme – which will increase by 15% or €44 million to €331 million in year 3, services should not need to take this step.

Supports are available from my Department where a service is experiencing financial difficulty or has concerns about their viability, accessed through local Childcare Committee.

I encourage services to avail of these supports as an alternative to withdrawing from Core Funding and removing the benefits of this Scheme to parents.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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My Department is providing over €369 million in subsidies through the National Childcare Scheme (NCS) to parents of over 180,000 children to meet the cost of early learning and childcare.

The subsidies are progressive in nature.

All families can receive a universal subsidy, but the highest subsides are provided to families with the lowest levels of income through an income assessment process.

Additionally, the NCS sponsorship arrangement allows designated bodies to refer children for free access to early learning and childcare on child welfare, protection, family support or other specified grounds.

Significant enhancements have been introduced to the NCS in recent years, including:

• Removing of the practice of deducting hours spent in pre-school or school from the entitlement to subsidised hours;
• Extending the NCS universal subsidy to all children under 15; and
• Increasing the minimum hourly subsidy available under the Scheme from 50 cent to €1.40.