Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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648. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the estimated full-year cost of increasing childcare subsidies to 100% of fees paid by parents availing of childcare subsidies from the national childcare scheme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [35658/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy has requested the cost of increasing the NCS subsidy so that 100% of fees are covered by the NCS.

It is not possible to provide an accurate estimation at this time. To model a change such as this accurately would require individualised fee data on out of pocket costs for parents. 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 provides the Department with data on the average weekly fee per child before subsidies. However, this average fee figure does not accurately capture the variation across the ELC and SAC sector. These fees vary significantly based on the location of the service, usage patterns (i.e. sessional, part-time, full time) and age of the child.

Additionally, sufficient time would be required to model such a change capturing the behavioural shift that would occur as a result of this change including increases in labour market participation, changes in usage of childcare and use of formal childcare for the first time.

The Programme for Government has committed to establishing a cap on costs at €200 per child per month to further build on significant progress in affordability that has already been made through a number of existing Schemes. 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 a €200 per child per month cap on childcare costs for families and outline the timeline to achieve this. As part of this process, thorough and accurate modelling of childcare costs around the country will be carried out.