Mark Wall (Kildare South, Labour)
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354. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the role her Department takes on the provision of early years education and care in rural communities; to outline their locations; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [14933/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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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).

Currently 93% or more than 4,400, providers having signed up for Core Funding in year 3.

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.

Partner Services can choose how they spend their Core Funding Grant, as long as they align with the approved areas of expenditure in the Core Funding Partner Service Funding Agreement (the Core Funding Contract).

There are also 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.

This support can take the form of assisting services with interpreting analysis of staff ratios and cash flow, financial support for services (subject to an assessment of need), as well as more specialised advice and support appropriate to individual circumstances. There is a specific strand of this financial support for eligible community services in very rural and isolated areas, where they can be affected by demographic fluctuations due to the low population.

These supports can be accessed by any Core Funding Partner Service by contacting their local County/City Childcare Committee.

The Early Years Care and Education (ECCE) programme requires providers to have a minimum of 8 children registered on the programme to receive funding from my Department under the programme.

To support rural services unable to meet this minimum number requirement, a service may apply for an exemption to the minimum numbers rule based on the limited availability of ECCE providers in an area.

Each year, Pobal compiles data from Early Learning and Care (ELC) and School Age Childcare (SAC) providers as part of the Early Years Sector Profile. This data is sourced from both the Annual Early Years Sector Profile Survey (AEYSP) and the Early Years Platform (EYP). The most recent published data on Service Provider location for the 2023/2024 programme year indicates that in total 1,133 services, 25% of all services, were located in rural areas.

The table below provides figures for the total number of services in each Local Authority area, the number and proportion of these services that are located in rural areas.

As can be seen from the table below the local authorities with the highest proportion of services in rural areas for the 2023/2024 programme year were Mayo (47%), Roscommon (47%) and Kerry (45%), while the local authorities with the lowest proportion of services in rural areas were Dublin – Dublin City (0%), Dublin – Dún Laoghaire – Rathdown (1%) and Dublin – South Dublin (1%).

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.