Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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132. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth her plans to introduced targeted investments, in childcare, especially in early years education. [32988/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The Government has made significant commitments to improve accessibility, availability, affordability and the quality of early learning and childcare provision.

Investment in early learning and childcare is now at unprecedented levels with public funding exceeding €1.37 billion in 2025, clearly demonstrating the Government’s commitment to this area.

The National Childcare Scheme (NCS) is the primary measure aimed at reducing costs. Through the provision of both universal and targeted subsidies, the Scheme is progressive in nature ensuring the highest levels of subsidies go to families that need them most.

The NCS has undergone several enhancements in recent years to further improve affordability for parents. These include the extension of the universal subsidy to all children under 15 and two increases to the minimum hourly subsidy, which is now worth a minimum of €96.30 per week for 45 hours. Children in childminding settings that have come forward for registration, following changes to the childminder Tulsa registration requirements last September, can also benefit from NCS subsidies.

Fee controls, in place in almost 93% of early learning and childcare services as a result of the Core Funding scheme, ensure that the investment in the NCS has resulted in real change for parents. There is going to be a further €60 million increase in State funding for this Scheme in 2025/2026, bringing the total to a record €390 million.

Record numbers of children and their families are now benefiting from the NCS. Approximately 190,000 children have benefited from a subsidy under the Scheme this year so far. The Consumer Price Index has shown a drop of 38.1% in early learning and childcare costs since the start of 2023, arising from substantial increases to the National Childcare Scheme.

Moreover, data from the OECD shows a reduction in the proportion of childcare costs relative to net income of 9% for couples and 47% for lone parents, between 2018 and 2023. The enhancements introduced in 2024 will reduce these figures further during 2025 meaning early learning and childcare will take less from these families’ net income.

In September 2024, my Department commenced the rollout of Equal Start, a major model of supports to ensure children experiencing disadvantage can access and meaningfully participate in early learning and childcare.

Equal Start is designed to be developed and rolled out in phases. Services with the highest level of need are targeted in the early phases.

€17,185,000 has been allocated to Equal Start in 2025. An allocation of more than €11,700,000 is provided for Staffing Supports payments in Budget 2025. Under this initiative, 769 services are currently receiving an average annual payment of €10,816. The Staffing Supports payment will target around 35,000 children with the highest level of need.

Budget 2025 also provides funding of €3 million to design and roll out an Additional Nutrition Programme. This programme is currently in development.

Funding for additional measures will be requested in consecutive budgets. Equal Start supports will be fully rolled out in three phases over a five-year period, with full implementation within the lifetime of First 5 – by 2028.

Since its introduction in 2016, the Access and Inclusion Model (AIM) has had a major impact on the lives of children with disabilities and the overall quality of early learning and care. Over 35,000 children have received more than 80,000 targeted supports across over 4,800 early learning and care services nationwide.

As of April 2025, there were 109,225 children participating in the ECCE programme, and 8.5% of this cohort (9,302 children) were in receipt of targeted AIM supports. Approximately three-quarters of early learning and care services now employ a qualified Inclusion Coordinator, benefiting over 78,000 children in ECCE alone.

The 2025 budget allocation for the Access and Inclusion Model (AIM) is €80.861m. This funding provides a suite of universal and targeted supports across 7 levels. Measures include staff training, equipment, therapeutic supports and the facilitation of a lower ratio of children to staff in pre-school rooms or funding for an extra staff member as a shared resource, where a child with additional needs is present. Access to AIM is based on the needs of the individual child, in the context of the pre-school setting and does not require a diagnosis.

AIM has now expanded beyond time spent in the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme, allowing children to access AIM targeted supports for an additional 3 hours a day during the ECCE term and 6 hours outside of the ECCE term.

It is intended that over time, all children with disabilities registered in early learning and childcare services will have access to supports under AIM. To this end, a tailored model is under design which would enable the extension of AIM to children under three. It is also intended to give consideration at a later date to an extension of AIM for children attending school-age childcare. Both extensions will require a redesign of AIM to ensure that it meets the different needs of children in these two separate cohorts and will also require funding through the annual Budget process.

Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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133. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth her plans to address the number of families who cannot access affordable childcare. [32989/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The Government has made significant commitments to improve accessibility, affordability and the quality of early learning and childcare provision.

Investment in early learning and childcare is now at unprecedented levels with public funding exceeding €1.37 billion in 2025, clearly demonstrating the Government’s commitment to this area.

The Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Programme, which provides two years of pre-school without charge, enjoys participation rates of 96%. Over 70% of families on low income report that they would not be able to send their child to pre-school without this Programme.

The National Childcare Scheme (NCS) complements the ECCE Programme, providing subsidies – both universal and targeted - to reduce the costs to parents for children to participate in early learning and childcare. The Scheme is progressive in nature ensuring the highest levels of subsidies go to families that need them most.

The NCS has undergone a number of enhancements in recent years to further improve affordability for parents. These include the extension of the universal subsidy to all children under 15 and two increases to the minimum hourly subsidy, which is now worth a minimum of €96.30 per week for 45 hours.

Record numbers of children and their families are now benefiting from the NCS. Almost 220,000 unique children benefited from an NCS subsidy in 2024.

Children in childminding settings that have come forward for registration, following changes to the childminder Tusla registration requirements last September, can also benefit from NCS subsidies.

The fee management system introduced through the Core Funding Scheme has ensured that the investment in affordability is not absorbed by unnecessary fee increases and/or uncapped fees. A cap on fees was introduced for services joining Core Funding for the first time in the third year. It was announced in June 2024 that a fee cap will apply to all services in Core Funding from September 2025.

An evaluation of the National Childcare Scheme is due to start this year. This evaluation will review how the Scheme has performed to date and identify potential enhancements that could be made. The findings from this evaluation will inform the work of my Department in reaching the Programme for Government commitment to cap childcare fees at €200 per month per child within the lifetime of this Government.

A detailed Action Plan to build an affordable, high-quality, accessible early learning and childcare system will be developed, informed by stakeholder consultation. This will include the steps to deliver the €200 per month cap and outline the timeline for achieving this.

Further progress on affordability will not be made in isolation and will be integrated with our efforts to improve access, availability and the quality of early learning and childcare provision.