Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)
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558. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if increased ECCE hours constitute a new service under the core funding scheme; and the method of calculating what is a proportionate fee increase for services that have not increased fees in the past decade. [41534/24]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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Core Funding Partner Services may create a new Service Type and agree that the fee for any new Service Type will be calculated as not more than a proportion of the closest equivalent fee extant on September 30th 2021 which, all other things being equal, would apply to the eligible child. The proportion of the fee cannot exceed the relative proportion of the Service Type.

Where a Partner Service increases the level of service offered, a higher fee can be charged for this, but the higher fee must be in direct proportion to the increase. For example, for an increase in full-day care from 40 hours/week to 50 hours/week represents an increase of 25%, a higher fee can be charged for this, but it cannot exceed an increase of 25% of the previous fee that was charged to parents/guardians as of 30 September 2021.

Where the amount of service offered is decreased, the fee charged must also decrease by at least the same proportion.

Under ECCE rules, an Approved Provider who provides a sessional-only service and does not offer any other category of service (part-time, full-time, etc.) may offer an option of a maximum additional 30 minutes per day. The 30 minutes must be listed as an optional extra on the fees list.

Under Core Funding, sessional-only services which have been offering ECCE only, and which wish to increase provision and introduce a fee for the additional 30 minutes can do so provided they follow these rules:

• Those that declared nothing in the “fee excluding ECCE” column in their approved ECCE Fee Policy can charge up to a proportion of the standard rate but not in excess (i.e. €11.50 per week for the additional 30 minutes per day, as a proportion of the standard capitation rate of €69).

• Those that declared a “fee excluding ECCE” lower than standard capitation rate can charge up to the standard rate but not in excess.

• Those that declared “fee excluding ECCE” the same as the standard capitation rate can charge up to the standard rate but not in excess.

• Those that declared a higher “fee excluding ECCE” than the standard capitation rate can charge a proportion of that rate.

Sessional services offering only ECCE have been operating with a fee charged to parents of €0, as the fee is covered by the ECCE subsidy. Therefore, when these services become part-time or full-time services, they may introduce a new hourly fee to parents in line with the following rules which follow the same logic as the above:

Those that declared nothing in the “fee excluding ECCE” column in their approved ECCE Fee List/Table can may introduce a new hourly fee to parents up to the hourly ECCE standard capitation rate of €4.60 (which is the standard capitation rate divided by the number of weekly ECCE hours). This will ensure that the weekly fee is in proportion to the increase in hours from sessional care. (Where ECCE continues to be offered to eligible children as a component of part-time or full-time care, the ECCE capitation rate should then be deducted from this fee for children availing of ECCE, in accordance with the ECCE rules).

Those that declared a “fee excluding ECCE” lower than standard capitation rate can charge up to a proportion of the standard rate but not in excess.

Those that declared “fee excluding ECCE” the same as the standard capitation rate can charge up to a proportion of the standard rate but not in excess.

Those that declared a higher “fee excluding ECCE” than the standard capitation rate can charge a proportion of that rate.

There are also developments to the fee management system.

Up to now, services availing of Core Funding have not been allowed to raise their fees above what was charged to parents on 30 September 2021 (or at the point of first signing up for Core Funding if the service did not exist on 30 September 2021).

The fee freeze will remain in place for the majority of these services for year 3 of Core Funding, though there are two new developments:

Services whose fees have been frozen at a level that may not be sufficient to sustain their business even with increased funding available through Core Funding, will have the opportunity to apply for a Fee Increase Assessment. Only services currently charging low fees (fees below the average in their county) will be eligible to apply and the onus will be on the provider to demonstrate a need for a fee increase. Any approved fee increases will not go above the increased universal NCS subsidy that a parent would be receiving for the full hours offered within the fee. This means that parents receiving the universal NCS subsidy for the full hours offered in these services will not face higher costs.

A cap on fees is being introduced for services joining Core Funding for the first time in the third year. A fee cap will apply to all services in Core Funding from September 2025. This change will improve affordability for parents, as very high fees will be reduced.