Mark Wall (Kildare South, Labour)
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2505. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality if she will provide a breakdown of the current funding streams for childcare; the breakdown of the additional funding provided in Budget 2025, in tabular form; the expected funding required in 2026 to maintain existing levels of service; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [44054/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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Budget 2026 is currently being considered by Government in the context of the annual estimates process, which officials in my Department are actively engaging in. Therefore, the Deputy will appreciate that it would not be appropriate for me to comment further at this stage.

Core Funding

In 2025 a minimum of €338.2 million has been allocated to Core Funding. I secured a further €15 million in Budget 2025 specifically to support employers to meet the costs of further increases to the minimum rates of pay in the sector from September 2025.

Equal Start

In September 2024, my Department commenced the roll-out 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 have been targeted in the early phases. Funding for additional measures will be requested in budgets during the lifetime of Equal Start. 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.

A total of €17.19 million has been allocated to Equal Start in 2025, having increased from an allocation of €4 million in 2024.

ECCE

The Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme provides free universal preschool to children in the eligible age range. The programme is provided for three hours per day, five days per week over 38 weeks per year. The programme year runs from the end of August to the following June in line with the primary school year.

ECCE is provided by private enterprises, either privately owned or operated by community organisations. Services are contracted with my Department to provide ECCE at no cost to the parent.

The 2025 ECCE Budget Allocation is €269.2 million.

AIM

The Access and Inclusion Model (AIM) was introduced in 2016 and is a model of supports designed to ensure that children with disabilities can fully participate in the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) preschool programme.

Since its introduction 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.

AIM provides a suite of universal and targeted supports based on the needs of the individual child, in the context of the ECCE setting, and does not require a diagnosis.

The 2025 AIM Budget Allocation is €80.9 million.

NCS (National Childcare Scheme)

The National Childcare Scheme (NCS) provides financial support to help parents meet the cost of early learning and childcare. There are two types of subsidies available under the NCS:

A Universal Subsidy is available to all families with children between 24 weeks and 15 years of age. This subsidy is not means tested and provides €2.14 per hour towards the cost of a registered early learning and childcare place for a maximum of 45 hours per week.

An Income-Related Subsidy is available to families with children aged between 24 weeks and 15 years. This subsidy is means tested and will be calculated based the applicants’ individual circumstances. The rate will vary depending on the level of family income, the child’s age and educational stage, and the number of children in a family.

In 2025, the Scheme was allocated approximately €529.7 million.

Mark Wall (Kildare South, Labour)
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2506. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the additional funding required to reduce the costs of childcare for parents to respectively €50 per week or €200 per month; to provide a breakdown of the additional allocations required, in tabular form; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [44055/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The Programme for Government commits to “progressively reduce the cost of childcare to €200 per month per child.” This commitment will be achieved over the lifetime of the Government.

Initial steps have already been taken. Recently, 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 early learning and childcare fees to €200 per month.

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 preschool without charge and has participation rates of 96%. Over 70% of families on low income report they could not send their child to preschool 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 this year. 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 early learning and childcare further to €200 per month over the lifetime of the Government.