Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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My Department provides a wide range of funding schemes to support the delivery of early learning and childcare and school age care services.

Core Funding is a grant to providers designed to support quality, sustainability, and enhanced public management, with associated conditions in relation to fee control and cost transparency, incorporating funding for administration and to support the employment of graduate staff.

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. This funding increased by 11% in year 2 (to €287 million). The scheme increased by a further 15% in year 3 (to €331 million).

The Core Funding grant is available to services nationwide who meet the below criteria:

• Completed their Annual Early Years Sector Profile (AEYSP);
• Registered with Tusla, the Child and Family Agency;
• Contracted with DCEDIY to deliver Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) and/or National Childcare Scheme (NCS), as appropriate:
• Offers sessional care to the ECCE-eligible age range must offer ECCE
• Offers care to any other age ranges must offer NCS
• Offers care to both must offer both programmes

A number of targeted supports for small and sessional services in Year 2 of Core Funding were introduced in order to improve sustainability of small-medium services, and these supports were enhanced in September 2024 for Year 3. These measures currently include a flat rate top up of €5,000 (increased from €4,075 in Year 2) for sessional-only services, and a minimum base rate allocation of €14,000 (increased from €8,150 in Year 2). There is also a maximum base rate allocation of €500,000 in place for the current programme year.

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.

In 2025, €25m is being made available to deliver additional capacity under the Building Blocks Extension Grant Scheme. There are four strands under the scheme, Private - Extension, Community - Extension, Community - Purchase and Community - Construction. This grant is designed to support the delivery of full day provision for children aged 1-3.

Launched on 4 November 2024, this grant opened for applications in December 2024 and closed for applications on Thursday 30 January. All eligible applications are currently being appraised and I hope to announce the successful applications in the next month.

My Department is examining potential enhancements to the ECCE Programme on foot of the ECCE review recently completed by Stranmillis University. Any changes to the Programme will be informed by consultation with all stakeholders impacted.

In September 2024, my Department commenced the rollout of Equal Start, a major model of supports to ensure children experiencing disadvantage can access and meaningfully participate in early learning and childcare.

Equal Start is designed to be developed and rolled out in phases. Services with the highest level of need are targeted in the early phases.

For the 2024/25 programme year this includes additional staffing supports providing for a 15% increase in staffing hours for Tier 1 services, and 8% for Tier 2 services based on the minimum staffing required under regulation.

From September 2025, an Additional Nutrition programme will be rolled out in Equal Start sessional services. This will involve additional funding to all Equal Start services to support them to provide optimum nutrition to the children in their care.