Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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1883. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the way his Department plans to prevent service providers that have pulled out of the core funding scheme for childcare from introducing fee increases on service users; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [20219/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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Parents/guardians and their children can only avail of the benefits and protections that Core Funding creates, such as the effective fee freeze at 2021 levels, if their service has chosen to participate in the scheme as a Partner Service.

While my Department cannot mandate providers to participate in schemes, every effort has been made to carefully design Core Funding to meet the policy objectives including to achieve high levels of participation by providers.

Some providers may choose to no longer participate in Core Funding and therefore, as private businesses, they are free to set their own fees.

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

While a service provider intends to withdraw from Core Funding, they remain eligible in this programme year to provide the National Childcare Scheme, the Early Childhood Care and Education programme and the Community Childcare Subvention Plus Saver programme.

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

If a parent is concerned that their provider has not followed the above procedure, or in the event that they wish to raise a concern regarding a potential breach in fee conditions, the first step is to reach out to their local City/County Childcare Committee for support and guidance. Contact details for local City/County Childcare Committees can be found at www.gov.ie/en/publication/52b71-support-for-parents-city-and-county-childcare-committees/.

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 level of Core Funding for year 3 of the scheme and fee management developments, 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.

However, Core Funding will remain open to these providers should they subsequently commit to offering services under the conditions and investment levels on offer through Core Funding.