Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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1901. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the action that will be taken to tackle the core funding scheme for childcare being so dysfunctional (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [45095/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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Core Funding has seen consistent increased State investment to the sector year on year, and is set in year 4 to be worth over €390 million contingent on the establishment of new minimum rates of pay in the sector through updated Employment Regulation Orders. This is an increase of over 50% since the scheme began in September 2022 with an allocation of €259 million.

In June, 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 childcare fees to €200 per month over the lifetime of this Government.

Maximum fee caps were introduced for new services last year, and this September they will be extended to existing services also. Under these new fee caps, the fee for a full day place – of between 40-50 hours per week, the most common full day care operating hours – will be no more than €295 per week (before State subsidies under the National Childcare Scheme and the ECCE programme are deducted), the fee cap for 50+ hours of care is €354. All of the fee caps will reduce the highest fees at each fee band in the country. The majority of services are already charging far less than the new maximum fees. This is an important step towards the reduction of childcare fees to €200 per month over the lifetime of this Government.

This latest measure builds on a range of supports already in place.

The Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) Programme provides two years of pre-school without charge and has participation rates of 96%. Over 70% of families on low income report they could not send their child to pre-school 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.

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 childcare further to €200 per month.