Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

The National Childcare Scheme (NCS) provides financial support to help parents to meet the cost of childcare and allow children to access Early Learning and School Age Childcare.

Significant investment has been made in the NCS in recent years with over €529m allocated in Budget 2025. This investment has allowed the Department to further improve affordability for parents through the Scheme. Enhancements have included the extension of the universal subsidy to all children under 15 years of age, and two increases to the minimum hourly subsidy, which is now worth a minimum of €96.30 per week for 45 hours.

I would also note that the Department will commence an evaluation of the NCS this year. This evaluation will review how the Scheme has performed to date and identify potential enhancements that could be made to better support working families and improve affordability. The process will include extensive stakeholder consultation with parents, providers and representative groups, as well as a comprehensive review of national and international research and best practice. These steps will ensure that any future developments are well-informed, and evidence based.

During term-time, the National Childcare Scheme (NCS) subsidy may be used to reduce the cost of any early learning and childcare provided outside of school or ECCE hours. For example, the subsidy can be used to cover:

• Childcare used before preschool, or school, starts in the morning (e.g. breakfast club)
• After-school childcare, or;
• Childcare used outside of preschool or school term weeks

The NCS cannot be claimed at times where the child is in school or ECCE. In cases where the hours needed by the parents have decreased because they are spending more time in school – for example, a child moving from Senior Infants to First Class, therefore needing one less hour of care a day – it would be expected that the corresponding fee would also have reduced. However, as private businesses, early learning and childcare providers are free to set their own session types and fees. It is between the provider and parent to agree on the hours of childcare based on the family’s requirements and what sessions the provider can offer.

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

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

The fee management system (which includes a fee freeze at September 2021 levels and maximum fee caps) is a key feature of the Core Funding scheme, which ensures that the scheme’s investment in affordability is not absorbed by unnecessary fee increases. The substantial level of investment offered through Core Funding has these conditions attached to protect the investment of taxpayers’ money so that the State can be assured it is being used for its intended purpose and not contributing to increased private profit. For this reason, fee management conditions can only be applied to services that have an active Core Funding contract.

There are only two scenarios where a service signed up to Core Funding may increase their fees – if they received written approval to do so from the Department via the Fee Increase Assessment process; or if they increased their offering via extended hours, whereby they may increase their fees proportionally. In both cases, parents must be provided with written notice of any changes 20 working days in advance of their taking effect.

If you have concerns about a potential breach of Core Funding fee management conditions by a Partner Service, which has occurred during the 2025/2026 Programme Year, they may seek to have this examined and a conclusion reached through the Core Funding Fee Review process. Further detail on this process is available in the Guidelines on Fee Management section on the Early Years Hive:

More broadly, if a parent is experiencing issues in relation to your early learning and childcare provision, they may wish to contact their local City/County Childcare Committee (CCC). The CCCs have received extensive training on the NCS and their specific role is to support parents in their communities with early learning and childcare provision. Details of local CCC’s may be found here:

www.gov.ie/en/department-of-children-disability-and-equality/publications/city-and-county-childcare-committees/

For information specific to the NCS, please visit www.ncs.gov.ie.