Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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1851.To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if an urgent review can be conducted of funding for community childcare. [32480/24]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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An Expert Group was convened in 2019 to review the funding model for early learning and childcare and make recommendations for a new funding model. The Expert Group engaged in a widespread programme of stakeholder consultation as part of this two year project, engaging with parents, providers, the workforce, and other stakeholders.

In December 2021, Government adopted all 25 recommendations contained in an Expert Group report, Partnership for the Public Good: A New Funding Model for Early Learning and Care (ELC) and School-Age Childcare (SAC) and implementation of these recommendaitons in underway.

The new funding model – Together for Better – was launched in September 2022 and comprises existing strands of funding (the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Programme, the National Childcare Scheme (NCS) and the Access and Inclusion Model (AIM) and two new strands of funding – Core Funding and Equal Start.

Core Funding is designed to meet the combined objectives of:

• Improved affordability for parents by ensuring that fees do not increase;
• Improved accessibility for children by ensuring providers offer the ECCE programme and/or the NCS, including sponsored arrangements;
• Improved quality through, inter alia, better pay and conditions for the workforce by supporting agreement on an Employment Regulation Orders through the Joint Labour Committee and the employment of graduate staff; and
• Improved sustainability and stability for services.

• The introduction of a fee freeze at September 2021 levels, which has ensured the increases to National Childcare Scheme subsidies were fully felt by parents.
• The introduction of a requirement on services to offer the NCS to all eligible families, including sponsored arrangements, which has led to a 20% increase in the number of services offering the NCS, a 100% increase in the numbers of children benefiting from the NCS and a 52% increase in the number of sponsored children.
• The introduction of historic Employment Regulation Orders for the Early Years Services Sector, which came into effect in September 2022 providing minimum hourly rates of pay for early years educators and school age childcare (SAC) practitioners, increasing the wages of an estimated 73 per cent of those working in the sector. Updated Employment Regulation Orders introduced in June 2024, increasing minimum rates of pay by a further 5%, as recommended by the Labour Court, and removing the three-year experience requirement for graduate lead educator/manager minimum pay rates.
• Extended support for graduate-led provision outside the ECCE programme, with almost 3,000 services now receiving Graduate Premiums.
• Significant growth in capacity for cohorts and in areas where there is undersupply, allowing greater access for children and their families.

Equal Start will roll out from September 2024 providing both universal and targeted measures to support access to, and participation in, ELC and SAC for children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

An allocation of €4.5m has been secured in 2024 to commence this first phase of rollout (equivalent to €13.5m in a full year).

The majority of additional funding for Equal Start for the first programme year will be allocated to these targeted settings to fund additional staff hours that can be used to support engagement between the settings and families, engagement between the settings and other child and family support services, training in inclusive practices and to support other educators and practitioners in the provision of early learning and childcare to children with higher levels of need.

My Department also oversees a Case Management process through which local CCC and Pobal work together to assess and provide support to early learning and care services experiencing difficulties. This can include help with completing and interpreting analysis of staff ratios, fee setting and cash flow, as well as more specialised advice and support appropriate to individual circumstances.

Financial supports, which may also be accessed through the Case Management process, are available for community services presenting with sustainability issues following a financial assessment by Pobal. A strand of funding designed to support Partner services is also available.

Settings to benefit from setting-targeted supports– approximately 750 – are settings, which have been objectively identified as operating in the context of the highest levels of concentrated disadvantage.