Written answers
Thursday, 7 November 2024
Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth
Childcare Services
Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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397. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth in view of the widespread concern expressed by childcare providers about the viability of their services, if he will review the funding level for such providers, particularly for services providing full-time places for younger children, for which there is huge demand and an inadequate supply at present, taking into account that more services will be lost imminently; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [45973/24]
Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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The introduction of Core Funding in 2022 brought a significant increase in investment for the sector, with €259 million of funding paid directly to services in year 1 of the scheme, of which €210.8 million was entirely new funding.
One of the key objectives of Core Funding is to support the sector as a whole with the introduction of direct supply-side funding, in addition to the ECCE programme and the NCS, to create a more stable and sustainable financial environment.
This funding, which increased by 11% (to €287 million) in year 2, increased again by another 15% in year 3 (to €331 million).
This funding facilitated the following changes from September:
The Base Rates for all age groups increased with larger increases in funding for places offered to children under the age of three. In short, all providers currently signed up to Core Funding will receive a higher payment going forward to support their day-to-day costs.
The flat rate for services registered on the Tusla Early Years Register as sessional-only (a pre-school service offering a programme for a total of not more than 3.5 hours per session) is increasing from €4,075 to €5,000. This will strengthen supports to sessional-only services, who typically operate for shorter hours per week and fewer weeks per year.
The minimum Base Rate allocation increased from €8,150 to €14,000. This is the minimum amount of funding a centre-based service (not childminders) will receive through their Base Rate and ensures a minimum guaranteed income for services.
Additionally, there has been changes in the Fee Management conditions of the scheme.
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 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.
Core Funding is set to rise to a minimum of €350.64 million in programme year 4 (September 2025 – August 2026), before additional funding to support the outcomes of further Employment Regulation Order (EROs) agreed by an independent Joint Labour Committee (JLC) is considered.
This additional funding to support the outcomes of the JLC process is worth €45 million in year 4.
Further increases to Core Funding beyond year 4 (September 2025-August 2026) will be considered in the context of the estimates process.
The Together for Better Website contains a link to all current partner services. The website also contains a link to all programme year 1 (2022/2023) 22/23 Partner Services individual allocations.
Every year it is normal for some early learning and care (ELC) and school-age childcare (SAC) services to close while other new services open. Reasons for closures vary and services can provide a number of reasons for closure.
As of September 2024, 302 new ELC and standalone SAC services have opened with 112 ELC and standalone SAC services closing. Meaning there is a net increase of 190 services to date in 2024.
In 2023 there was a total of 296 services new ELC and standalone SAC services opened, with 167 services closing. Meaning there was a net increase of 113 services in 2023.
In addition to the increased level of Core Funding for year 3 of the scheme and fee management developments, there are wider financial supports available from the Department where a service is experiencing financial difficulty or has concerns about their viability, which can be accessed while remaining within Core Funding.
If any service has viability concerns, I encourage them to reach out to their local City/County Childcare Committee (CCC) to start availing of supports through the aforementioned case management process.
Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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398. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if he will ensure that the core funding model for each county will be amended to take into account recent additional costs on such services impacting on their viability with potential closures and subsequent loss of childcare places; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [45974/24]
Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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The introduction of Core Funding in 2022 brought a significant increase in investment for the sector, with €259 million of funding paid directly to services in year 1 of the scheme, of which €210.8 million was entirely new funding.
One of the key objectives of Core Funding is to support the sector as a whole with the introduction of direct supply-side funding, in addition to the ECCE programme and the NCS, to create a more stable and sustainable financial environment.
Core Funding is a grant to Early Learning and Care (ELC) and/or School Age Childcare (SAC) providers towards their operating costs. The majority of Core Funding is distributed based on a service's capacity - the opening hours, opening weeks and the age group of children for whom services are provided as well as number of places available.
It is designed to deliver:
Affordability for parents through Fee Management and offering NCS and ECCE to all eligible children;
Quality in services, including through better terms and conditions for staff and supporting graduate leadership in services; and
Sustainability for providers through substantially increased funding to the sector, paid on a consistent and equitable basis.
This funding, which increased by 11% (to €287 million) in year 2, increased again by another 15% in year 3 (to €331 million).
This funding facilitated the following changes from September:
The Base Rates for all age groups increased with larger increases in funding for places offered to children under the age of three. In short, all providers currently signed up to Core Funding will receive a higher payment going forward to support their day-to-day costs.
The flat rate for services registered on the Tusla Early Years Register as sessional-only (a pre-school service offering a programme for a total of not more than 3.5 hours per session) is increasing from €4,075 to €5,000. This will strengthen supports to sessional-only services, who typically operate for shorter hours per week and fewer weeks per year.
The minimum Base Rate allocation increased from €8,150 to €14,000. This is the minimum amount of funding a centre-based service (not childminders) will receive through their Base Rate and ensures a minimum guaranteed income for services.
Additionally, there has been changes in the Fee Management conditions of the scheme.
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 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.
In addition to the increased level of Core Funding for year 3 of the scheme and fee management developments, there are wider financial supports available from the Department where a service is experiencing financial difficulty or has concerns about their viability, which can be accessed while remaining within Core Funding.
Currently, 91% of services have signed up to year 3 of Core Funding. The application rate for year 3 of Core Funding is similar to the application rate for the same period in 2023, with services continuing to sign up. Providers can sign up to the scheme at any time over the course of the programme year.
Every year it is normal for some ELC and SAC services to close while other new services open. As of September 2024, 302 new ELC and standalone SAC services have opened with 112 ELC and standalone SAC services closing. Meaning there is a net increase of 190 services to date in 2024.
In 2023, there was a total of 296 new ELC and standalone SAC services, with 167 services closing. Meaning there was a net increase of 113 services in 2023.
Core Funding is set to rise to a minimum of €350.64 million in programme year 4 (September 2025 – August 2026), before additional funding to support the outcomes of further Employment Regulation Order (EROs) agreed by an independent Joint Labour Committee (JLC) is considered.
This additional funding to support the outcomes of the JLC process is worth €45 million in year 4.
Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source
399. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if urgent consideration will be given to addressing the shortage of childcare places, particularly for younger children and pre-ECCE recipients, in view of the widespread concern of parents who may wish to return to work and are unable to do so because of the lack of such places; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [45975/24]
Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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Improving access to quality and affordable early learning and childcare is a key priority of Government.
Data available to my Department demonstrates that, overall, early learning and childcare provision is expanding in terms of number of services opening, the number of places and hours of provision that services are offering, the numbers of staff employed and the numbers of parents supported through various schemes and initiatives.
- Data from the Early Years Sector Profile Survey shows that, between 2021/22 and 2022/23, the estimated number of enrolments in services rose by 8% from 197,210 to 213,154.
- Core Funding application data shows that between Year 1 (from September 2022-August 2023) and Year 2 (from September 2023-August 2024) of the scheme, annual place hours increased by 7.4%.
- Data from Tusla on service closures and new service registrations shows a net increase of 129 in the overall number of services in 2023 and a five-year low in the number of net ELC services closures – with pre-school service closures falling by 18% in the first year of Core Funding.
- Data from the Early Years Sector Profile Survey showing that, between 2021/22 and 2022/23, the estimated number of staff in the early learning and childcare workforce rose by 8% from 34,357 to 37,060.
- Data from the National Childcare Scheme showing that since 2022, there has been a 22 per cent increase in the number of providers offering the Scheme, a 100 per cent increase in the numbers of children benefitting from the Scheme and a 52 per cent increase in the number of sponsored children.
At the same time, there are also instances of underutilisation of capacity with some services reporting vacant places and others not operating to the maximum of their Tusla capacity.
This year, I established a Supply Management Unit within the Early Learning and Care and School Age Childcare Division of my Department. A key part of the Supply Management Unit’s remit is to develop capacity for monitoring, analysing and forecasting of supply and demand in the sector.
The development of a forward planning model is currently underway utilising the expertise of statisticians on secondment from the Central Statistics Office and an early learning and childcare expert from a County Childcare Committee working with the Department and a GIS mapper. The model will seek to identify the nature and volume of different types of early learning and childcare places across the country, whether or not those places are occupied and how that aligns with the numbers of children in the corresponding age cohorts at local area level.
In addition to developing this forward planning model, the Supply Management Unit oversees the administration of capital investment under the revised NDP. Some €89 million has been allocated to my Department between 2023 and 2026 for capital funding.
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 care. I recently announced the launch of the €25m Building Blocks Extension Grant scheme for early learning and childcare providers. The Building Blocks Extension Scheme will deliver additional capacity by supporting existing early learning and childcare Core Funding partner services to extend their premises. It will also allow community services to purchase or construct new premises.
All projects will be required to deliver net increases in full-time places for one to three-year-olds. The application process will open in November 2024, with funding to be available from 2025. I anticipate that this scheme will deliver thousands of new full time places for 1-3 year olds.
More widely, the overall funding model is designed to support quality provision across the full age range for ELC. In particular, Core Funding was intentionally designed to address some of the pre-existing disparities in funding levels across ECCE and non-ECCE provision. Higher levels of funding are available for capacity for younger children, to support the higher operating costs for these children arising from the higher staff ratio requirements. In addition, Core Funding includes a graduate premium to support employment of graduates with a relevant degree at level 7 or above into leadership roles. This aspect of Core Funding encourages employment of graduates as Lead Educators across all ELC.
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