Marie Sherlock (Dublin Central, Labour)
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396. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality how the NCS IT system was able to process applications in respect of school-going age for 41 hours per week. [52806/25]

Marie Sherlock (Dublin Central, Labour)
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397. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the actions taken by her Department on foot of the fault in the NCS IT system; the resources allocated to the follow-up inspection; and the number of services inspected as part of this investigation. [52807/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 396 and 397 together.

The Department oversees the National Childcare Scheme (NCS) compliance function which is administered by Pobal CAR (Compliance, Audit and Risk). Pobal CAR are responsible for carrying out compliance inspections on service providers. These inspections check if services are adhering to certain programme rules and contract conditions, as well as some legislative requirements under the NCS and that risks to Exchequer funding are minimised. Pobal CAR inspections have a separate remit to the other Inspectorates with a distinct focus.

Under Section 18 of the Childcare Support Act 2018, Pobal’s compliance inspectors, known as Authorised Officers, are granted certain powers to enact the NCS compliance function. Authorised Officers are given ministerial approval on an annual basis.

NCS compliance inspections performed by Pobal CAR involve a suite of checks. One of the categories of checks conducted, confirms that NCS Claims by a service provider are accurate and reflective of actual levels of attendance, allowing for thresholds as outlined in the NCS rules. The hours claimed are verified by Authorised Officers by reviewing attendance records maintained onsite.

It should be noted that the accurate recording of a child’s attendance is a core obligation for participants in the National Childcare Scheme (NCS). As per NCS rules, Providers should not register a school-going child for subsidised hours while they are in school.

During term-time, the NCS subsidy can be applied to hours outside of school, for example, to subsidise breakfast clubs, or after-school childcare. During non-term time, the subsidy can be claimed for all the hours children will attend the service up to their maximum awarded weekly hours (i.e. 45 weekly hours).

An overclaim occurs where NCS hours are claimed by the Provider in excess of the maximum time that a child can spend in the service based on both their Operating times and the time that the child spends in school.

The EY HIVE system enables Providers to submit claims up to the maximum weekly hours throughout the year. This is to provide flexibility for families to claim additional hours during non-term time i.e. mid-term, Christmas, school holidays etc. To reiterate, it is the responsibility of the Provider to ensure that they adhere to the procedures set out in the NCS Regulations and the Policy Guidelines when registering a child on the Scheme, and when confirming registrations on the EY HIVE.

It is not currently feasible to have a systems block on the EY HIVE limiting the claimable hours in term for school-going children for a number of reasons. Firstly, schools have flexibility on when much of their leave is taken, with certain mid-term breaks, training days and other school closures occurring on different dates at different schools. Secondly, individual services set their own operating hours. For example, a service operating 6.30am – 7pm (62.5 hours a week), would mean it would be possible for Junior and Senior Infants in that service to have a valid claim of up to 40 hours. We also know that childminders, who are often used by parents with variable shift patterns, can on occasion accommodate longer days for certain children. The ‘maximum’ hours available to a given child would differ service to service, and within those services, the maximum amount available on a given week would vary depending on the timetable of the school or schools from which the service is offering cover. Therefore, it is incumbent on the provider to ensure when they set up claims for School-Age Children in their care they are not claiming for any hours the child is in school.

There is however a check on claimable hours for school-going children. Where hours claimed are higher than reasonably expected, this may trigger an inspection by Pobal.

Marie Sherlock (Dublin Central, Labour)
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398. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the reason parents have to renew their NCS eligibility every eight weeks; and the plans she has to lengthen this period. [52808/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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To confirm, subsidies awarded under the National Childcare Scheme (NCS) typically last 12 months. Every NCS award has an end-date which is clearly stated on the award. Applicants must renew their application before this end-date if they wish to continue receiving a subsidy for their child. If they do not renew, the award will expire and the subsidy payment will stop at the end date i.e. the service provider will no longer receive payments towards the cost of the child's place.

What the Deputy may be referring to is the Scheme's under-attendance rules, which have been designed in recognition that there are many reasons why a child's attendance may occasionally be less than their agreed hours. This may be, for example, due to a parent being able to collect their child earlier than usual or illness. However, this does not impact a child's eligibility nor is there a need to renew an award.

To explain, where a child attends fewer than their agreed hours for a consecutive eight week period, a warning will issue to parents alerting them to the situation. At this point, if the child attends their agreed hours for a full week then no further action is taken and the cycle resets.

It is only the under-attendance continues for a further four weeks (i.e. 12 weeks under-attendance total) then the number of subsidised hours awarded under the Scheme will be revised. The hours are revised to reflect the average number of hours that were actually attended by the child over the previous 12-week period. These rules strike a fair and appropriate balance between flexibility for families' everyday lives while at the same time taking the necessary steps to protect State finances.

To reiterate, once the under-attendance is broken by one full week of attendance within this cycle, the subsidy is unchanged and parents need not take any further action. Subsidies are only reduced if a child is continuously under-attending or not using the agreed hours for a period of 12 consecutive weeks.

Finally, it may also be of interest to note that early learning and childcare providers can round up part hours of daily attendance to the next whole hour (once still within the service's operating hours). This means that if a child attends 4 hours and 1 minute (or more), it is recorded as 5 hours of attendance for that day.