Cathy Bennett (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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89. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if she will outline the amount by which childcare costs have reduced since the formation of Government. [32460/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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Earlier this month, I announced the introduction of maximum fee caps for all Partner Services in Core Funding from September 2025. The fee freeze will remain in place for all Partner Services with fees below these caps. This is an important step towards the reduction of childcare fees to €200 per month over the lifetime of this Government.

Maximum fee caps were introduced for new services last year, and this September they will be extended to existing services also. Under the new fee caps, the highest possible fees will be no more than €295 per week for a full-day place of 40-50 hours per week. Once the National Childcare Scheme subsidy is taken into account, the maximum fee for a parent in this situation will be less than €200 per week.

This latest measure builds on a range of supports already in place.

The Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Programme provides two years of pre-school without charge and has participation rates of 96%. Over 70% of families on low income report they could not send their child to pre-school without it.

The National Childcare Scheme (NCS) complements ECCE, giving universal and targeted subsidies to reduce costs to parents. Recent improvements include the extension of the universal subsidy to children under 15 and two increases to the minimum hourly subsidy, now worth €96.30 per week for 45 hours.

Almost 220,000 children benefited from a subsidy in 2024. Since last September, children in childminding settings can also benefit from National Childcare Scheme subsidies.

In addition, the fee management system introduced through Core Funding has made sure the investment in affordability is not absorbed by unnecessary fee increases. Core Funding has enjoyed high participation rates to date, with 92 per cent of services taking part.

Preparations for the first Estimates process for this Government are underway and I am committed to bringing forward proposals to make further progress in this area.

Work is also under way to develop an Action Plan to build an affordable, high-quality, accessible early learning and childcare system, informed by stakeholder consultation. This will set out future steps to reduce the cost of childcare further to €200 per month.

Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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90. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to outline the steps taken to ensure that there are more creche spaces introduced in north Kildare; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [32420/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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Early learning and childcare capacity is increasing nationally.

Core Funding data shows that between Year 1 and Year 3 of the scheme, annual place hours increased by over 15% and the estimated number of enrolments increased by approximately 19% between 2022 and 2024. Enrolments in Kildare increased by almost 22% over the same period.

Moreover, data from the Tusla shows there was an increase of 5 services on the pre-school register and 15 services on the school-age register in Kildare in 2024.

However, demand for early learning and childcare remains higher than available supply in certain places, particularly for younger children.

The Forward Planning and Delivery Unit in my Department has been expanded with the allocation of additional staff and it is pursuing an ambitious programme of work. A detailed model is being designed to better understand the nuances of supply and demand at a local level.

We are continuing to support the sustainability and expansion of the sector through ongoing development and resourcing of Core Funding which supports providers with operating costs based on the number of places available.

The Government is also supporting the expansion of capacity through capital funding. The Building Blocks Extension Grant Scheme is designed to increase capacity in the 1–3-year-old age range for full day care. Core Funding Partner Services could apply for capital funding to physically extend their premises or to construct or purchase new premises.

I was delighted to announce recently the 49 applications which are progressing to the next stage of the funding process. The 49 projects are a mix of Community Extension, Private Extension, Community Purchasing and Community Construction projects. When completed they will deliver almost 1,500 additional full time childcare places for 1-3 year olds across the country.

Among the 49 applications are three services from Kildare.

Additionally, the Programme for Government commits for the first time to provide capital investment to build or purchase state-owned early learning and childcare facilities, to create additional capacity in areas where unmet need exists. Detailed design of this policy is ongoing and the implementation of this initiative will be underpinned by the capital allocation to be set out in the forthcoming revision of the National Development Plan.