Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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1885.To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the number of early years learning providers that have exited core funding to date in 2024; and the associated increase in costs to parents, if known, by county, in tabular form. [32779/24]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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The below figures account for services who had an active contract during the relevant programme call (i.e. between 14^thSeptember 2022 – 31^stAugust 2023 for year 1, 1^stSeptember 2023 – present for year 2) and have an application status of withdrawn – meaning they withdrew from the scheme and remained open.

Over 94%, or over 4,300, providers have signed up for Core Funding in year 2.

The Department does not have access to data that could be used to determine the increase cost to parents as a result of a service withdrawing from Core Funding as this is purely a matter for the individual service.

It is a matter for providers to decide whether they wish to withdraw from the Core Funding scheme, the significant financial supports it provides to providers and the certainty it provides to parents through the associated fee freeze. However, I am confident that given the level of investment and associated supports, services should not need to take this step.

While a provider may withdraw from Core Funding, they remain eligible in this programme year to provide the National Childcare Scheme (NCS), the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme and the Community Childcare Subvention Plus (CCSP) Saver programme.