Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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416. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the supports available to childcare providers looking to open new childcare premises; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [13060/25]

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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417. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth her plans to encourage more childcare providers to engage with CORE funding; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [13062/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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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.

This funding increased by 11% (to €287 million) in year 2 and by a further 15% in year 3 (to €331 million). This facilitated the following changes from 2 September 2024, which built on the targeted measures that were introduced in the second year of the scheme to support smaller and sessional only services:

• The base rates for all age groups increased with larger increases in funding for places offered to children under the age of three.
• 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) increased from €4,075 to €5,000. This strengthens 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) has received through their base rate and ensures a minimum guaranteed income for services. This increase supports smaller services and services operating in rural areas, who may be prone to fluctuations in demand.
• The maximum base rate allocation has decreased from €600,000 to €500,000. Services will not receive funding through the base rate beyond this maximum value. Any service receiving more than this maximum value will see their base rate funding reduce to this level.

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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418. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the number of childcare providers that removed themselves from CORE funding in 2024; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [13063/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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Currently 93% or more than 4,400, providers having signed up for Core Funding in year 3.

There were a total of 11 services around the country who withdrew from the Core Funding scheme in 2024.

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 management measures. However, I am confident that given the level of investment and associated supports, services should not need to take this step.

The Agreement for the provision of Core Funding in Programme year 3 (2024/2025) states that services must give 3 months’ notice of their intention to withdraw to the scheme administrator, and 3 months' written notice to parents/guardians.

While a provider withdraws 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.

I do not want any service to be faced with financial sustainability issues and officials in my Department are committed to working with any such service to support them in delivering early learning and childcare for the public good.

As such, in addition to the increased levels of Core Funding since the scheme was introduced, there are wider financial supports available from my Department where a service is experiencing financial difficulty or has concerns about their viability, which can be accessed while remaining within Core Funding.

I encourage services to avail of these supports as an alternative to withdrawing from Core Funding and removing the benefits of this Scheme to parents.

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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419. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth her plans to improve access to childcare in Dublin Fingal west; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [13086/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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Improving access to quality and affordable Early Learning and Care and School Age Childcare is a key priority of Government.

Early learning and childcare capacity is increasing. An annual sector profile demonstrates an 8% increase in enrolments between 2021/22 and 2022/23. Core Funding application data shows that between Year 1 and Year 2 of the scheme, annual place hours increased by almost 8%. The Tusla register of services demonstrates a net increase in the numbers of registered early learning and childcare services in 2024. However, it appears that demand for Early Learning and Care and School Age Childcare remains higher than available supply, particularly for younger children and in certain parts of the country.

Demand for early learning and childcare beyond sessional pre-school provision is highly elastic and shaped very substantially by families' individual composition, circumstances, and preferences; employment patterns and income; and the price and availability of services.

Last year, a Supply Management Unit within the Early Learning and Care and School Age Childcare Division was established, and the Programme for Government articulates an intention that the unit be resourced and transformed into a Forward Planning and Delivery Unit to identify areas of need, forecast demand, and deliver public supply within the childcare sector where required.

A forward planning model is in development which will be central to my Department's plans to achieve the policy goals set out in the Programme for Government to build an affordable, high-quality, accessible early childhood education and care system, with State-led facilities adding capacity.

My Department continues to support the ongoing development and resourcing of Core Funding which has given rise to a significant expansion of places since the scheme was first introduced. Core Funding, which is in its third programme year, funds services based on the number of places available, whether or not they are filled.

This provides stability to services, and reduces the risk associated with opening a new service or expanding an already existing service. For the current programme year, the allocation for Core Funding allows for a 6% increase in capacity. Additional funding was secured in Budget 2025 to facilitate a further 3.5% increase from September 2025, in the fourth programme year.

The Government is also supporting the expansion of capacity through capital funding. The Building Blocks Extension Grant Scheme was launched on the 4th of November 2024. Applications for this scheme have now closed and an appraisal process has begun. The primary focus of the Extension Grant Scheme is to increase capacity in the 1–3-year-old, pre–Early Childhood Care and Education, age range for full day care.

Appraisal of applications for this scheme will consider the supply and demand in the area around the proposed projects and seeks to prioritise funding for areas with the biggest supply/demand mismatch. €25m will be made available this year to deliver additional capacity under the Scheme and I expect to announce the outcome of the application process in the coming weeks.

My Department funds 30 City/County Childcare Committees, which provide support and assist families and early learning and childcare providers. The network of 30 City/County Childcare Committees across the country can assist in identifying vacant places in services for children and families who need them and engage proactively with services to explore possibilities for expansion among services, particularly where there is unmet need.

Parents experiencing difficulty in relation to their early learning and childcare needs should contact their local City/County Childcare Committee for assistance. Contact details for the Fingal County Childcare Committee may be found at fingalcountychildcare.ie

Grace Boland (Dublin Fingal West, Fine Gael)
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420. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the progress that has been made to develop a public model of childcare; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [13087/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The Programme for Government marks a significant shift in the policy direction in relation to public delivery of early learning and childcare. There is a commitment for the first time to public provision and to capital investment to build or purchase State-owned facilities.

These commitments accompany other ambitious actions to significantly reduce out-of-pocket fees paid by parents, as well as increasing availability of places and improving pay and conditions for staff. This will enhance parental choice through ongoing support for public, private and community provision, as well as childminders.

Considerable reform has been implemented in the sector in recent years through increased public management and public funding. This has improved affordability, supported improved staff pay, and provided universal and targeted supports in the sector. A strong foundation has been put in place over the last five years, particularly through the introduction of new funding through the National Childcare Scheme and Core Funding, on which to build the next phase of reform in the early learning and childcare sector.

The framework for reform of the sector is set out in Partnership for the Public Good, the 2021 report of an Expert Group which was established to develop a new funding model for the sector.

The key theme of the recommendations in the report was to strengthen State involvement and enhanced public management in the sector, in conjunction with increased State funding.

The introduction of the new Core Funding scheme and its associated conditionality including in relation to staff pay and fee management; developments to the National Childcare Scheme and the Access and Inclusion Model; and the establishment of Equal Start this year represent the implementation of several of the specific recommendations in the report.

The sector is now predominantly publicly funded with necessary and appropriate conditionality attached to that funding, constituting certain features of a public model. As greater levels of public funding are anticipated to be invested in the coming years, public management will also increase commensurately.

These reforms also establish a strong basis for an element of the sector that is directly publicly delivered. In particular, the introduction of Core Funding less than three years ago has allowed for much more detailed insights into the operations and finances of early learning and childcare services which provides a necessary foundation for considering how public delivery could and should operate.

Some early scoping work has been carried out to explore options to introduce a segment of public provision. This will require much more detailed and extensive policy development and design in order progress to implementation stage, having regard to the wider policy emerging policy context as set out in the Programme for Government.

There are different understandings of what public provision means to stakeholders in the sector. Issues relating to staff employment, pay and conditions; ownership and management of buildings; operating models; governance arrangements; service offering; appropriate level of supply of services; fees for parents; and the overall funding model are being examined by officials.