Claire Kerrane (Roscommon-Galway, Sinn Fein)
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541. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the metric which determined in September 2024 that ECCE only services needed to move from a minimum of €5,000 in core funding up to €14,000; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [27108/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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Core Funding was introduced in September 2022 with a full year allocation of €259 million, of which €210.8 million was brand new funding to the sector. This funding was distributed primarily based on a services capacity through the Base Rate, with additional funding available to support graduate-led provision through the Graduate Premiums.

An additional €28 million was allocated to the scheme between September 2023 and August 2024, bringing the full year allocation to €287 million. This increased investment facilitated the introduction of targeted measures, which provide higher levels of support for small and sessional services. These measures were introduced in response to concerns raised by stakeholders in the sector and as a commitment to protect the existing capacity in the sector.

Under these targeted measures, a flat rate top up for sessional-only services was introduced at an annual rate of €4,075. This has increased to €5,000 for the third year of Core Funding. Sessional-only services are those who are registered with Tusla as offering only sessional care and are not approved to offer school-aged care. These services typically operate as ECCE-only services and would have limited income streams as they cannot charge fees for ECCE.

A minimum base rate allocation was introduced at the same time for all centre-based services. This was set at €8,150 for year 2 of Core Funding and increased to €14,000 for the third year of the scheme. This measure was introduced in recognition of smaller services having more limited incomes due to the size of their provision and certain elements of expenditure which do not necessarily scale in the same way.

Any service receiving less than the minimum allocation through their base rate would see their allocation automatically topped up to that level. For sessional-only services, their allocations are automatically topped up where their combined allocation for the base rate and flat rate top-up are below the minimum allocation. A small sessional-only service would receive the same minimum allocation as any other small centre-based service. Graduate Premiums are applied separately and do not affect whether or not a service qualifies for the minimum base rate allocation.

A maximum base rate allocation was introduced as the final targeted measure, set at €600,000 initially and reducing to €500,000 for the third and current year of Core Funding. Graduate Premiums are applied separately and would allow a services allocation to exceed €500,000.