Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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386. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the number of children registered for early years and school age childcare for the 2025-2026 programme year; the number which were registered for the previous three programme years; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [52627/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The number of unique children registered for early years and school age childcare for the 2025/2026 programme year-to-date is as follows:

The number of unique children that were registered for the last three programme years is as follows:

All data contained in this response has been provided by Pobal, the Scheme Administrator of the childcare funding programmes.

Methodology:

This data was extracted from the Data Warehouse by MAOU on the 30th September 2025.

The number of children in receipt of NCS subsidies were defined as the number of unique children with at least one closed and confirmed claim in the programme year (i.e. a claim where attendance returns were submitted by the service provider and with parental confirmation, where applicable) for claims.

The Education stage has been derived from the Education Stage Group where:

• ELC is where the Education Stage Group is Pre-ECCE, ECCE or Early Start
• SAC is where the Education Stage Group is Junior/Senior Infants, 1st to 6th class or Post primary.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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387. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the number of children who are registered for ECCE for the years 2025-2026; the percentage of the total number of children registered for early years and school age childcare for the 2025-2026 programme year; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [52628/25]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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388. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the number of children who are registered for ECCE year two for the 2025-2026 programme; the percentage of the total number of children registered for early years and school age childcare for the 2025-2026 programme year; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [52629/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 387 and 388 together.

The total number of unique children that are registered for the ECCE 2025/2026 programme call as of 30th September is 102,364.

49,403 / 48% unique children are registered in the 2025/2026 ECCE Programme Year 2 as of 30th September.

The number of unique children registered this time last year in the 2024/2025 ECCE Programme is up by 0.76% from 101,593.

The percentage of the total number of children registered for early years and school age childcare for the 2025/2026 programme year as of 30th September is as follows*:

Please note NCS percentages are calculated as a proportion of the combined total and may not sum to 100% as a result. This is due to the nature of the data, with Educational Stage being provided by parents and children can have differing Educational stages attached to their claims. The combined total relates to the total number of unique children and children can possibly hold registrations in both ELC and SAC Education Stages.

*All data contained in this answer have been supplied by Pobal’s Funder Queries from 30th September 2025.

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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389. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality if she has engaged with early years providers regarding possible changes to the daily time allocated to the ECCE programme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [52630/25]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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390. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality if her Department has engaged with early years providers regarding possible changes to the daily time allocated to the ECCE programme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [52631/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 389 and 390 together.

The Programme for Government 2025 commits to "Explore making available an extra hour of ECCE each day in the second year of preschool". This commitment was informed by an independent review of the ECCE Programme which was published in October of last year.

During the course of the ECCE Review, representative organisations, pre-school staff, parents and children reported a preference for an increased provision of hours via the ECCE Programme. The evidence from the review suggests that longer hours can have benefits for child development, social and emotional outcomes as well as school-readiness. Additional hours could be particularly beneficial for children experiencing socio-economic disadvantage.

Officials in my Department are developing a detailed Action Plan to build an affordable, high-quality, accessible early learning and childcare system which will be informed by stakeholder consultation. This measure is one of a number of measures being considered and assessed in the context of the Action Plan.

Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal East, Labour)
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391. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality to outline the details of the new maximum childcare fee cap for learning and childcare services, to include details on when the fee cap will be rolled out; the process for parents to apply; the qualifying criteria, if this is means tested, and what parents need to do to register for this cap; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [52646/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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In June, I announced the introduction of maximum fee caps for all Partner Services in Core Funding from September 2025. These new maximum fee caps will place a limit on the fees that can be charged across all types of provision. This will reduce costs for families who are facing the highest fees across the country. The fee freeze will remain in place for all Partner Services with fees that fall below these caps.

The new maximum fee cap and increased State investment are important steps towards the Government’s commitment to progressively reduce the cost of early learning and childcare to €200 per month per child during the lifetime of the government.

Core Funding is a supply-side grant to early learning and childcare providers towards their operating costs. It is designed to deliver sustainability for providers through increased funding to the sector, paid on a consistent and equitable basis.

Adherence to the Core Funding fee management system is a primary condition of receiving the significant State funding that is available through the scheme, which has increased from €259 million in year 1 up to €390 million which is currently available for year 4. The fee management system requires compliance with the fee freeze and the maximum fee caps.

Under these new fee caps, the maximum fee for a full day place – of between 40-50 hours per week, the most common full day care operating hours – can more no more than €295 per week (before State subsidies under the National Childcare Scheme and the ECCE programme are deducted), and the maximum fee for 50+ hours of care can be no more than €354.

Parents can benefit from the new fee caps by enrolling their child with a childcare provider that has contracted to Core Funding for programme year 2025/2026, which covers 1 September 2025 up to 31 August 2026. These providers are known as Partner Services. There is no means test or qualification process for parents to benefit from the new fee caps once they have their child enrolled in a Partner Service.

As of 29 September, 90.9% of providers are contracted to the Scheme. Parents can check for their nearest Partner Service by visiting the gov.ie page How to Find a Partner Service:

www.gov.ie/en/department-of-children-disability-and-equality/publications/how-to-find-a-partner-service/

Robert O'Donoghue (Dublin Fingal West, Labour)
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392. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality if she will prioritise the provision of community based, not-for-profit early education and school age childcare services in public buildings, such as schools, over corporate, for-profit providers; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [52672/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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Improving access to quality and affordable Early Learning and Care and School Age Childcare is a key priority of Government.

Currently approximately a quarter of all early learning and childcare provision is delivered by not-for-profit operators and three quarters by for-profit operators. For-profit operators range from sole traders and partnerships to much larger scale multi site operations.

In 2025, €25m in voted expenditure was made available for the Building Blocks Extension Grant Scheme to allow services to extend, construct or purchase new premises. The scheme was heavily weighted towards not-for-profit providers and, of the 50 projects approved for funding, 43 of which were not-for-profit community services.

Guidance on making available school buildings for early learning and childcare and other community uses is provided by the Department of Education and Youth in Procedures on use of school buildings and sports facilities outside of school hours published last year. In making available its facilities, the guidance asks schools to be conscious of their school's position in the community and the support provided by the community in the provision and maintenance of the facilities. The guidance notes that early learning and childcare provision in schools may be delivered by a commercial entity or a community not-for-profit group, with different considerations applying in each instance. Supporting the provision of after-school childcare in particular is strongly encouraged.

The Programme for Government commits to working with schools to host before and after-school care, and examine start-up supports for groups involved in after-school activities. The Programme for Government also contains a commitment to plan the development of State-led facilities in tandem with the school building programme, including Irish medium naíonraí. The potential for development of State-led facilities in tandem with the school building programme will be considered as part of the wider capital plans to develop State-led services.

The Programme for Government commits for the first time to provide capital investment to build or purchase state-owned early learning and 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 for much greater scope to influence the nature and volume of provision available and to ensure better alignment with estimated demand. This work will be supported through capital investment under the revised National Development Plan 2026-30.

The approach more widely to ensuring appropriate levels of early learning and childcare supply is being considered by my Department and will be further articulated in the context of the Action Plan to build an affordable, high-quality, accessible early childhood education and care system that Government has committed to publishing.