Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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307. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the plans in place to provide sufficient childcare places at an affordable rate, so that parents can plan for the future; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26264/24]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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My Department provides a number of schemes under the Together for Better funding model, which offset the cost of early learning and childcare to families.

The ECCE programme, which provides two years of pre-school without charge, enjoys participation rates of 96% each year. Over 70% of families on low income report that they would not be able to send their child to pre-school without this programme.

The National Childcare Scheme (NCS) complements the ECCE programme, providing subsidies – both universal and targeted - to reduce the costs to parents for children to participate in early learning and childcare.

Since January 2023 - with the increase in the minimum NCS subsidy to €1.40 per hour – out of pocket costs to families have fallen by 25% on average. From this September, the minimum subsidy will increase again to €2.14 per hour – and the cumulative reduction in out of pocket is estimated to reach 50% on average.

Finally, the fee freeze in place in 95% of early learning and childcare services as a result of the Core Funding scheme ensures that the investment in NCS has resulted in real change for parents and not been absorbed by fee increases.

Record numbers of children and their families are now benefiting from the NCS.

Later this year, an estimated 2,000 children in childminding settings will be added to this cohort of beneficiaries, when the initial cohort of childminders come forward for registration with Tusla enabling the NCS to be opened up to families using these childminders for the first time.

As well as increasing the numbers of funded and regulated early learning and childcare places available through the regulation of childminders, my Department is progressing a range of other actions to ensure the supply of early learning and childcare is aligned with demand. Work in this area led by a new Supply Management Unit that I established earlier this year.

A key part of the Supply Management Unit’s remit is to develop a planning function for monitoring, analysing and forecasting of the supply and demand - akin to the Forward Planning Unit in the Department of Education.

The Unit will also oversee the administration of capital investment under the National Development Plan, through the Building Blocks Capacity Grant. The primary focus of the Building Blocks Capacity Grant Schemes is to increase capacity in the 1-3 year old, pre-ECCE, age range for full day or part-time care. I hope to announce details of the Building Blocks Extension Grant Scheme in the coming weeks.

Additionally, my Department is currently engaging with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage to examine and review the 2001 Planning Guidelines for Local Authorities on Early Learning and Childcare Settings with a view to updating them.

Finally, and in addition to the fee freeze, Core Funding has proven to be effective in expanding capacity. Year 2 of the scheme provided for capacity growth of 3%, which has materialised and for Year 3 of the scheme, additional funding will be directed towards a further 5.6% increase in capacity growth.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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308. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the plans in place to increase the number of childcare places throughout County Kildare over the next twelve months; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26265/24]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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Capital funding has been allocated to the early learning and childcare sector under the revised National Development Plan (NDP). This will enable significant investment in early learning and childcare.

In 2024 and 2025, my Department is delivering capital investment through the Building Blocks Capacity Grant. The primary focus of the Building Blocks Capacity Grant Schemes is to increase capacity in the 1-3 year old, pre-ECCE, age range for full day or part-time care.

The schemes will operate between 2024 and 2025. It will operate over two strands, an Expansion scheme and an Extension scheme to support existing services to increase capacity.

The Expansion scheme offers funding for internal reconfiguration projects valued at between €50,000 and €100,000 that increase capacity. This scheme is now closed and Pobal are preparing to notify the successful applicants.

The Extension scheme will offer funding for larger scale projects to enable existing services to build new capacity on their current site or nearby. The scheme will be formally announced in the coming weeks to allow services to prepare their applications.

Participationin Core Funding is a requirement of both strands. Kildare County Childcare Committee will be providing support to services from Kildare that are applying for funding

A Relative Demand Model has been developed by my Department using the latest census data and information on existing provision and enrolments to generate insights into the extent to which existing levels of supply meet local demand on a county by county basis. This analysis will allow the funding to be targeted to where it is most needed.

A key feature of the Capacity Grant Schemes will be a check to ensure that fees charged by services applying do not exceed a maximum fee threshold. This will ensure that capital investment does not result in the delivery of places that are unaffordable to parents.