Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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201. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if she is aware of a case (details supplied) in which a family have had their subsidised childcare hours slashed from 45 to 31 due to underattendance caused by frequent illness of the child; and if she will instruct her Department to look into this issue and ensure the family has appropriate childcare. [14328/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The National Childcare Scheme (NCS) is designed to be flexible in acknowledgement that many families avail of the Scheme and their childcare needs differ widely. For this reason, NCS subsidies are awarded as an hourly rate, along with a maximum number of weekly hours that the subsidy will be paid for.

The subsidy payment is based on the hours agreed between the parent and provider, and subject to the rules of non-attendance. This is a key financial and governance control to ensure that Exchequer funding is used responsibly, and not to fund full-time places in respect of children actually attending part-time hours.

This said, the rules of the Scheme are designed to be very flexible and we recognise that there are many reasons why a child’s attendance may occasionally be less than their agreed hours. For instance, as the question details, a child may attend less due to illness. To be clear, occasionally under-attendance will not affect their award or subsidy received. Awards are only revised where continual under-attendance is recorded for a consecutive 12 week period.

Prior to this point, if a child attends fewer than their agreed hours for a consecutive eight week period, a warning will issue to the parent alerting them to the situation. At this point, if the child attends their agreed hours for a full week after this warning is issued, then no further action is taken and the cycle resets. However, if the under-attendance continues for a further four weeks, the number of subsidised hours awarded under the Scheme will be revised. The hours are revised to reflect the average number of hours that were actually attended by the child over the previous 12-week period.

To reiterate, once the under-attendance is broken by one full week of attendance within this cycle, the subsidy is not changed. Subsidies are only reduced if a child is continuously under-attending or not using the agreed hours for a period of 12 consecutive weeks.

These rules strike a fair and appropriate balance between flexibility for families’ everyday lives while at the same time taking the necessary steps to protect State finances.

Finally, it may also be of interest to note that early learning and childcare providers can round up part hours of daily attendance to the next whole hour (once still within the service's operating hours). This means that if a child attends 4 hours and 1 minute (or more), it is recorded as 5 hours of attendance for that day.

Should this family require further support, it is advised that they contact Pobal's Parent Support Centre who are best placed to advise. The Parent Support Centre is available for contact on 01 906 8530, Monday to Friday 9am-5pm. Further information is also available on the NCS website. The website's FAQs (www.ncs.gov.ie/en/faqs/) in particular may be useful.