Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
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25. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality if her Department holds any statistics on the average cost of childcare in each of the past ten years; and the steps her Department is taking to reduce the cost of childcare. [49649/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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Pobal compiles data through the Annual Early Years Sector Profile on weekly fees charged by service providers before deductions for subsidies are applied. Data is not routinely collected on household out-of-pocket costs for Early Learning and Care and School-Age Childcare.

The most recently published fee data from June 2024 shows that from 2016 to the 2021, the average full time fees charged by services increased by 13.6%.

However, the average fees were largely frozen following the introduction of the Core Funding scheme in 2022, which required that participating services freeze their fees at September 2021 levels and adhere to all other conditions of the fee management system.

To support the freezing of fees, maximum fee caps were introduced for new services last year, and from this month they now cover all services in Core Funding. In addition, the fee-caps are set at a lower level than before.

The maximum fee for a full-day place of between 40-50 hours per week (which is the most common full day care operating hours) is €295 per week, before State subsidies under the National Childcare Scheme and the ECCE programme are deducted. For those on the minimum level of subsidy, this will bring their out-of-pocket costs down to less than €200 per week, with those on income assessed subsidies paying less.

While this is an important development for those paying the highest fees, with a median fee of €200 per week nationally, or just €100 after the minimum subsidies are deducted, the reality is that most families are already paying much less.

The fee management system introduced through Core Funding has made sure that investment in affordability is not absorbed by unnecessary fee increases. Core funding has enjoyed high participation rates to date, with 92% of services taking part in the 2024/25 programme year.

The latest Core Funding measure builds on a range of supports already in place to help lower the out-of-pocket costs of childcare for parents.

The ECCE programme provides two years of preschool without charge and has participation rates of 96%.

The National Childcare Scheme complements the ECCE programme, 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. Since last September, children in childminding settings can also benefit from National Childcare Scheme subsidies.

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 fees further to €200 per month over the lifetime of the Government.

Preparations for the first Estimates process for this Government are under way, and I am committed to bringing forward proposals to make further progress in this area.