Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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2456. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the number of children, by county, who benefitted from supports under the national childcare scheme in 2023, 2024 and 2025, in tabular form; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [43206/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The National Childcare Scheme (NCS) provides financial supports to parents to help reduce the cost of early learning and childcare. The Scheme 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 €2.14 per hour. These enhancements have helped to result in a positive growth in the number of children benefitting from NCS subsidies.

The number of unique children who benefitted from an NCS subsidy for the specified years, according to county, is detailed in the following table:

Number of unique children benefitting from NCS

It should also be noted that there may be a difference between the sum of children per county versus the final total. This is because children can have multiple claims in a given calendar year which could be across multiple providers, in multiple counties. However, for the purposes of the 'total', these children have only been counted once.