Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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372. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the estimated full-year cost of increasing the spending on childcare to 1% of GDP. [60816/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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Government is committed to ensuring high quality early learning and care (ELC) and school-age childcare (SAC) is accessible and affordable as demonstrated by unprecedented increases in State investment in recent years.

The Department secured a budget allocation of €1.375 billion in 2025, which represents an additional investment of €216m, or 19% when compared with 2024, and which is providing improved affordability for parents, facilitating capacity growth within the sector, and ensuring additional supports for children and families who are experiencing disadvantage.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for 2025 is currently unavailable as the current calendar year has not yet been completed. The GDP figure for 2024 is €538 billion at constant prices.

The full year cost of one percent of 2024 GDP at constant prices is €5.38 billion. Expenditure on ELC and SAC would have to increase by €4 billion in a full year to reach one percent of GDP at constant prices.

It accepted that GDP is a misleading indicator in the Irish context. Instead, a modified GNI, recommended by the Economic Statistics Review Group, is a more useful comparator. This is designed to exclude globalisation effects that are disproportionally impacting the measurement of the size of the Irish economy.

The modified GNI figure for 2024 is €321 billion at constant prices. The full year cost of one percent of 2024 modified GNI at constant prices is €3.21 billion. Expenditure in ELC and SAC would have to increase by €1.8 billion in a full year to reach one percent of modified GNI at constant prices.

Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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373. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the work carried out under the previous Government to support community childcare; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [60844/25]

Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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374. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality if she is aware that community childcare in the Fingal County Council area has fallen to just 5%, while Dublin City Council stands at 33% and Leitrim at 64% and that given the benefits of the community childcare model for disadvantaged areas, whether she could conduct an analysis on the reason some county councils are more effective than others in opening and sustaining community services. [60845/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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In respect of the early learning and childcare sector, this is currently an entirely privately delivered sector with three quarters of operators established on a for-profit basis and one quarter of a not-for-profit basis. Following on from the publication of Partnership for the Public Good in 2021, the sector has seen substantially increased public funding accompanied by significantly greater levels of public management.

Government sees a role for both private and community in the early learning and childcare sector and accordingly it does not differentiate between for-profit and not-for-profit services in either the eligibility criteria for or the calculation and distribution of Core Funding or demand-side funding.

Core Funding is an supply-side funding scheme that allocates investment to operators in order to manage fees, enable improved terms and conditions for staff and allow for greater levels of financial transparency. The annual allocation for the scheme has risen from €269m in the first year of the scheme to €436.5m in the fifth year which begins in September 2026.

This Department does however make distinctions between for-profit and not-for-profit operators in respect of investment of capital funding. The current Building Blocks Extension Grant Scheme has four strands, only one of which was available to for-profit operators. Of the 50 services approved for funding, 43 are not-for-profit and, by design, have on average substantially higher value grant allocations.

I am aware of the wide variety of provision types across the country, and the fact that different areas have different service profiles. There is a range of potential reasons for this including historical funding schemes (notably the Equal Opportunities Childcare Programme and the National Childcare Investment programme which operated in the period 2000-2010), existence of different forms of provision and community infrastructure, and access to appropriate buildings or capital investment.

Local authorities can have an effect on the type of provision facilitated through buildings they own though I note that local authorities are independent in the exercise of their functions. Many local authorities work with their City/County Childcare Committee when making such decisions and I welcome this engagement.