Ken O'Flynn (Cork North-Central, Independent Ireland Party)
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1904. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality following implementation of the September 2025 fee cap, if she will provide details of the maximum capped fees by hours band including the €295 week cap for 40–50 hours; the compliance and enforcement regime; the expected coverage share of services and children; and any sanctions for breach (details supplied). [45124/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The new maximum fee caps, applicable to all Partner Services from September 2025, will place a limit on the maximum fees that can be charged across all types of provision.

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.

The impact of the fee caps will be most greatly felt in city and commuter areas, where there tend to be more services and higher fees charged on average. The table below provides the breakdown of services identified as having at least one fee on their fee table above the maximum fee caps across each county division.

Since the launch of Core Funding in September 2022, data validations have been implemented on the application system to ensure that services abide by Core Funding rules. For the 2025/2026 programme year, validations have been put in place to ensure services are blocked from submitting their fee table if any fee exceeds the maximum fee cap in a given Fee Band. Services will therefore not be able to complete their Core Funding application if their fee table does not adhere to the cap on fees.

In the event that a service tries to submit their fee table with a Service Type above the maximum allowable fee at the relevant Fee Band, the fee will have to be reduced to at least the maximum fee. A message will appear to advise services of this and to adjust the fee accordingly. If the fees are already at or below the maximum values, there will be no action required.

All Partner Services must uphold their contractual obligations regarding their fees charged to parents/guardians as laid out in the Core Funding Partner Service Funding Agreement.

Where an individual identifies a case of a potential breach of any Core Funding fee rules by a Partner Service, they may seek to have this examined and a conclusion reached through the Core Funding Fee Review process: earlyyearshive.ncs.gov.ie/downloads/download-corefunding/.

If, through the Fee Review Process, a Partner Service is found to have breached any Core Funding Fee Rules, they are required to acknowledge the receipt of the Decision and carry out the rectification actions outlined as well as complete and return a declaration, in which a Partner Service confirms that they have:

Restored fees to the correct level.

Informed and refunded all parents who have been overcharged the full amount that they have overpaid, or agreed a repayment plan with them.

Updated the relevant Fee Table and Parent Statement for Partner Services on the HIVE, posted them in public locations on the premises, and emailed them to all parents as required by the Core Funding Partner Service Funding Agreement.

In the first instance, if the Partner Service fails to engage, declare or complete these actions Core Funding payments can be placed on hold. Following the on-hold process, failure to engage can lead to the termination of the Core Funding Partner Service Funding Agreement for the applicable year and may result in the Partner Service being unable to receive Core Funding in any future Programme Years.

If a parent/guardian wishes to raise a present concern regarding a potential breach of Core Funding Fee Rules, the first step is to reach out to their local City/County Childcare Committee for support and guidance. Contact details for local City/County Childcare Committees can be found at gov.ie - City and County Childcare Committees (www.gov.ie).

Ken O'Flynn (Cork North-Central, Independent Ireland Party)
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1905. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality to publish modelling by decile of household income and typical hours of parents net costs in September 2025 combining the new caps with NCS universal that is €2.14/hour up to 45 hours; and income-assessed subsidies up to €5.10/hour (details supplied). [45125/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I note that the Department has previously provided the Deputy with data on the new Core Funding fee caps and average fees across the country for the 2023/24 programme year in responses to the Deputy's Parliamentary Questions 45124/25 and 45127/25. It is not possible to provide an accurate model of the net costs to parents as requested by the Deputy at this time. Sufficient time would be required to model the interaction between the Core Funding fee caps, fee levels across the country, NCS subsidies and disaggregated data on household income for families availing of the NCS.

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. Also, the most recent available data from the sector profile relates to the 2023/24 programme year.

The Deputy may also note that 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.