John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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941. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the number of childcare providers receiving core funding for each year between 2022-2025, by county, in tabular form; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [63785/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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Participation in Core Funding is optional, but it remains open to all registered providers subject to their agreement to the terms and conditions of the Scheme.

Please see the table below which outlines the number of childcare providers per county with an activated Core Funding Partner Service Agreement during each of the programme years from 2022-2025. The data contained within the table is representative of the highest uptake figures across each of the programme years.

There may be a small number of services who received Core Funding at different times through each of the programme years and are not captured in the figures presented above.

As applications continue to be submitted, it is not yet possible to make an accurate assessment regarding the total number of childcare providers participating in Core Funding in the fourth programme year.

The fourth programme year of Core Funding began on 1 September. As of 17 November 2025, 4,549 services have signed up to the fourth year of Core Funding. This represents over 92% of all eligible services and this number continues to grow.

This year the scheme has continued to deliver improved affordability and accessibility for parents whilst ensuring improved quality and sustainability for Partner Services through increased investment, rising from €331 million in the 2024/2025 programme year to over €390 million in 2025/2026.

John Brady (Wicklow, Sinn Fein)
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942. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the number of childcare providers that have withdrawn from core funding for each year between 2022-2025, by county, in tabular form; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [63786/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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As Core Funding is an optional scheme, services have the autonomy and business freedom to withdraw from Core Funding, even though this will result in the loss of the significant financial support it offers them and the substantial benefits and certainty it brings to the families availing of these services.

An analysis of the services that left Core Funding in previous programme years was conducted in August of this year (analyses of this nature are only feasible on a programme year basis, as annual Core Funding contracts run from September to August).

In the interest of clarity, transparency and consistent reporting, I have defined a service that left Core Funding as any service that had a gap between contracts for Core Funding of 4 or more weeks. There are a number of reasons that a service might fall into this definition, for example a service could have withdrawn from the scheme, been removed from the scheme for breach of rules, or experienced a delay in re-contracting following a change of circumstance application or between programme years. Many services have left and later re-joined the scheme. There may be a small number of services who left the scheme and subsequently closed at a later date and are not captured in the figures below.

The tables below provide a breakdown of the services that left Core Funding in each programme year by county division. Some services may have left and rejoined multiple times across the three years, and therefore the figures cannot be summed across programme years from the breakdown below.

The fourth year of Core Funding began on 1 September 2025. As of 14 November, 4,545 services have signed up to the fourth year of Core Funding. This represents 92% of all eligible services and this number continues to grow.

As applications continue to be submitted, it is not yet possible to make an accurate assessment regarding whether further services have made the decision to no longer participate in Core Funding in the fourth programme year, which started on 1 September 2025.