Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The Core Funding Scheme is designed to maximise the participation rates of services in the Scheme. The substantial level of investment offered through the Scheme includes a range of measures to:

• reduce costs for families,
• deliver improved wages for staff,
• improve service quality; and
• protect the investment of taxpayers’ money so that the State can be assured it is being used for its intended purpose and not contributing to increased private profit.

When first introduced in 2022, Core Funding had an annual allocation of €259 million. That annual allocation has increased each year since and will exceed €390 million for year 4 of the Scheme, starting in September. This represents an increase of over 50% in Core Funding in three years.

In addition to the year on year increases in the Core Funding allocation, the Department has introduced a range of other enhancements to the Scheme in recent years to improve protection for families through, for example, new deposit rules and maximum fee caps.

My Department has also made changes to improve the sustainability of providers through, for example, targeted measures for small and sessional services, a fee increase assessment and approval process for services with fees frozen at unsustainably low rates. There are also wider financial supports from the Department for services experiencing financial difficulty.

All services have been encouraged to avail of these supports as an alternative to withdrawing from Core Funding and removing the benefit of Core Funding to children and their families.

My Department is progressing the development of an Action Plan to build an affordable, high-quality, accessible early learning and childcare system. 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.

A list of all Core Funding Partner Services is updated regularly on the Departments website under How to Find a Partner Service.

My Department provides a number of schemes which aim to reduce the cost of childcare for families. The Early Childhood Care and Education Scheme (ECCE) provides two years of pre-school without charge and enjoys participation rates of 96% each year. 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) compliments the ECCE programme, providing subsidies – both universal and targeted – to reduce the costs to parents for children to participate in Early Learning and Care (ELC) and School-Age Childcare (SAC). The minimum NCS subsidy has steadily risen from €0.50 in 2022, to €1.40 an hour in January 2023, and to €2.14 in September 2024 alongside extensions to eligibility. Higher subsidies are also available to families on lower incomes.

Services that leave Core Funding can still offer the NCS and ECCE, ensuring continuity of financial support for parents. Parents may also engage with their local City or County Childcare Committee, who can provide support and advice on the options available to them in their area.

An evaluation of the NCS 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 to better support families. Any changes to the NCS will be informed by a thorough review of international literature and comprehensive stakeholder engagement.

Improving access to quality and affordable Early Learning and Care and School Age Childcare is a key priority of Government.

The Forward Planning and Delivery Unit within my Department has been allocated additional resources and staff and is pursuing an ambitious programme of work. A forward planning model, under the remit of this unit, is in development which will be central to my Department's plans to achieve the policy goals set out in the Programme for Government to build an affordable, high-quality, accessible early childhood education and care system, with State-led facilities adding capacity.

The Programme for Government also commits to providing capital investment to build or purchase state-owned childcare facilities, to create additional capacity in areas where unmet need exists.

State ownership of facilities is a very substantial and significant development and offers the potential to influence the nature and volume of provision available and to ensure better alignment with estimated demand.

Early scoping work has been carried out to explore options to introduce a segment of state-led provision. Detailed policy development and design is ongoing in order to progress to implementation stage, having regard to the wider emerging policy context as set out in the Programme for Government, including in relation to affordability commitments.

Allocation of capital investment to build or purchase state-owned early learning and childcare facilities is being considered within the context of the revised National Development Plan.