Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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1965. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality her plans to ensure that creches adhere to the cap on childcare fees; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [46016/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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From 1 September 2024, First-Time Partner Services, meaning Partner Services who joined Core Funding for the first time in Programme Year 2024/25, were bound by the Core Funding Fee Cap Rules. From 1 September 2025, fee caps apply to all Partner Services who have contracted for Core Funding Programme Year 2025/26. The fee caps are facilitated by the Common Fee Structure, which organises Service Types by weekly hours into six Fee Bands, from Band A (0-10 hours) up to Band F (50 or more hours). Each Fee Band in the structure has a corresponding maximum allowable fee under Core Funding. The fee caps and Common Fee Structure form part of the progressive development of the Core Funding fee management system.

Since the launch of Core Funding in September 2022, 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.

Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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1966. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality her plans to support childcare providers in the administrative burden in accessing Government funding in the national childcare scheme. [46017/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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Work is well advanced on the Programme for Government commitment to develop an Action Plan for Administrative and Regulatory Simplification for the Early Learning and Childcare Sector, supported by a Working Group comprising representatives from the Department, Pobal and the City / County Childcare Committee and an Advisory Group comprising providers, educators/practitioners and parent representatives.

To inform this plan, Indecon Economic Consultants have completed a review of the end-to-end processes linked to publicly funded early learning and childcare schemes/programmes. A report of the findings of this review has been produced. Indecon has also compiled input from over 400 parents, providers, representative bodies and other key sectoral stakeholders who participated in a national consultation process.

Following recent further engagement with the Working and Advisory Groups, and these reports, the Action Plan which will outline short-term, medium-term, and long-term administrative and regulatory simplification measures will be finalised and published in Autumn 2025.

In advance of the publication of the Action Plan for Administrative and Regulatory simplification, the Department has identified a series of immediate measures that have already been delivered or are currently in train for delivery before year end 2025.

These actions, which have been developed from stakeholder input obtained over the course of regional workshops held throughout the country has allowed the Department to prioritise its Programme for Governments commitments, by aiming to deliver these actions concurrently with the development of the Action Plan.

Measures already implemented include

• Introduction of an online application process for Qualification Recognition. This online application process ensures applicants can upload their application documents with user-friendly, efficient, and accessible digital forms.
• A Simplified Core Funding application process for providers by continuing the introduction of cloning functionality to give the ability for services to clone a) their most recently approved Core Funding Application from the 2024/2025 Core Funding Programme Year as their 2025/2026 original Core Funding Application, and; b) fee tables

Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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1967. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the number of childcare providers that have left the national childcare scheme since the announcement of the childcare fee cap, in tabular form. [46018/25]

Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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1968. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the number of childcare providers in Dublin south central that have left the national childcare scheme since the announcement of the childcare fee cap, in tabular form. [46019/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 1967 and 1968 together.

Fee management was introduced with the substantial investment of Core Funding following the recommendations of the Expert Group in the Partnership for Public Good report. The first step of this process, which was approved by Government, was to limit increases in fee rates. Core Funding allowed for substantial increases in the total cost base for the sector, related both to pay and non-pay costs thereby creating the conditions to introduce fee management, which in year one and two was effectively a fee freeze, where providers could not increase the fees charged from September 2021.

In June 2024, my predecessor announced that a cap on fees charged to parents would apply to services joining Core Funding for the first time in the third year of the scheme, which started in September 2024, and that this cap on fees would apply to all services participating in the scheme, called 'Partner Services' from September 2025 when the fourth year commenced.

I was pleased to announce the details of the fee cap for the fourth year of Core Funding in June of this year, including a reduction in the maximum permissible fees within the scheme. This will reduce costs for families who are facing the highest fees across the country in around 10 per cent of early learning and childcare providers. At the same time, State funding for early learning and childcare providers through Core Funding has increased by €60 million as of last week, bringing it to a record level of over €390 million for the fourth year of the scheme.

In the interest of clarity, transparency and consistent reporting, I have defined a service that left Core Funding as any service that had a gap between contracts for Core Funding of 4 or more weeks. There are a number of reasons that a service might fall into this definition, for example a service could have withdrawn from the scheme, been removed from the scheme for breach or rules, or experienced a delay in re-contracting following a change of circumstance application or between programme years. Many services have left and later re-joined the scheme. There may be a small number of services who left the scheme and subsequently closed at a later date and are not captured in the figures below.

As of 5 August 2025, there were 4,807 services listed as being open on the Early Years Platform, of which 141 (3%) had left Core Funding at one point over the past 3 years and continue to operate outside of this scheme. A further 336 services (7%) had left Core Funding at one point over the past 3 years but later rejoined and are currently signed up to the third year of the scheme. The overwhelming majority of services, 4,056 or 84%, have continued to participate in Core Funding from the date on which they first signed up for the scheme.

The revised approach to identifying and reporting on services that have left Core Funding results in breakdowns only being available for a full programme year. The announcement of fee caps took place at the end of the second year of the scheme, therefore figures related to the third programme year are most relevant to report on for services that left the scheme following this announcement.

As of 5 August 2025, 19 Partner Services had left the 2024/2025 programme year of Core Funding (Year 3), of which 10 had rejoined the scheme and were participating in Core Funding on this date. The other 9 open services who left in the third year of the scheme were not participating on 5 August 2025. I am also aware that between 5 and 31 August 2025, two additional services reached the end of their notice period and withdrew from Core Funding – one in Dun Laoghaire Rathdown and one in Kildare. A breakdown by county division is below in tabular format.

While my Department cannot mandate providers to participate in schemes, every effort has been made to carefully design Core Funding to meet the policy objectives including to achieve high levels of participation by providers.

Participation in Core Funding is optional, but it remains open to all registered providers subject to their agreement to the terms and conditions of the funding. It is a matter for providers to decide whether they wish to sign up to Core Funding, the significant financial supports it offers to providers and the certainty it gives to parents through the associated fee management measures.

Additionally, my Department funds 30 City/County Childcare Committees, which provide support and assist families and early learning and childcare providers. The network of 30 City/County Childcare Committees across the country can assist in identifying vacant places in services for children and families who need them and engage proactively with services to explore possibilities for expansion among services, particularly where there is unmet need.

Parents experiencing difficulty in relation to their early learning and childcare needs should contact their local City/County Childcare Committee for assistance. For information, my Department has a list of all Core Funding Partner Services, which is updated regularly on the website, under How to Find a Partner Service.