Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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1301. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to provide details of how she will progressively reduce the cost of childcare to €200 per month through the national childcare scheme (NCS), as promised in the Programme for Government, and also provide a timeframe; provide core funding documentation for 2025/26; explain why the core funding document does not indicate any increase in the NCS subsidy in 2025, while some creches have applied for an increase this year; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [12280/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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Investment in early learning and childcare is now at unprecedented levels with public funding exceeding €1.37 billion in 2025, clearly demonstrating Government commitment to this area.

As well as addressing affordability this investment has served to improve accessibility, availability and the quality of provision.

The ECCE programme, which provides two years of pre-school without charge, enjoys participation rates of 96%. Over 70% of families on low income report that they would not be able to send their child to pre-school without this programme.

The National Childcare Scheme (NCS) complements the ECCE programme, providing subsidies – both universal and targeted - to reduce the costs to parents for children to participate in ELC and SAC.

The minimum NCS subsidy has steadily risen from €0.50 in 2022 to €2.14 per hour in September 2024 alongside extensions to eligibility. Additionally, families using a childminder can now avail of an NCS subsidy towards their early learning and childcare costs.

Record numbers of children and their families are now benefiting from the NCS. Almost 220,000 unique children benefited from an NCS subsidy in 2024.

There no changes to the NCS subsidy rates in 2025.

Funding secured in Budget 2025 builds on the substantial investment in 2024 in early learning and childcare, with total funding in 2025 of over €1.37 billion, an increase of 24% or almost €266 million. This supports the full year costs of the significant National Childcare Scheme subsidy increases for parents introduced this September 2024. It also ensures the continued expansion of the numbers of children supported under the National Childcare Scheme, ECCE and AIM. Added to that, it ensures the continued roll-out and expansion of Core Funding and Equal Start, with new funding to support improved pay for early years educators and school-age childcare practitioners. It will also deliver an additional nutrition programme to early learning and childcare settings operating in the context of concentrated disadvantage.

This year, my Department will begin an evaluation of the NCS to examine how the Scheme currently operates, it's impact and determine potential enhancements to the Scheme.

The Government of Ireland is committed to continuing to improve affordability and reach the €200 per month cap within the lifetime of the Government including exploring options to cap costs for larger families. However, further progress on affordability cannot be made in isolation and must be integrated with our efforts to improve access, availability and quality.

On the specific question on Core Funding, Core Funding is a grant for early learning and childcare providers towards their operating costs and is funding directly to providers (supply-side funding) and is designed to improve affordability, quality, inclusion and sustainability.

The majority of Core Funding is distributed to services via the base rate, which is based on a service’s staffed capacity – the opening hours, operating weeks, the age group for whom services are provided, and the number of places available. Places do not have to be filled in order to be allocated Core Funding, but for capacity to be funded, there must be enough staff in place to satisfy the minimum staff-to-child ratios.

Fee management was introduced with the substantial investment of Core Funding following the recommendations of the Expert Group, in the Partnership for Public Good report. The first step of this process, which was approved by Government, was to limit increases in fee rates.

For the third programme year of Core Funding, the further advancements in Fee Management included Fee Caps and a Fee Increase Assessment process was introduced in line with the recommendations in the Expert Group report.

In this process Core Funding Partner Services who were charging fees below the county average were eligible to apply to increase their fees.

The Fee Increase Assessment process was introduced to ensure that services who have fees which may not be sustainable are given the opportunity to apply for a fee increase.

The Fee Increase Assessment process opened in August 2024, and closed for applications on 29 November 2024.

The maximum allowable increase was capped at the equivalent increase in the NCS subsidy from September 2024 (74c per hour, up to a maximum of €33.30 per week for 45 hours of care or more per week).

My Department is currently working on the details for the upcoming 2025/26 Core Funding programme year, which begins in September. Once all details and contracts are finalised, they will be available in advance of programme readiness for 2025/26 as per the usual programme readiness cycles.