Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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333. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality when the assessment process for fee increase requests on behalf of childcare facilities participating in core funding will be announced; her views on whether it may have been premature to put in place a wage increase for practitioners without providing for an avenue where services can apply for fee increases simultaneously; and if she can commit to commencing this process without delay, ensuring that services have the opportunity to remain sustainable. [64325/25]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The 2025/2026 Core Funding Partner Service Funding Agreement includes provisions for the undertaking of a further Fee Increase Assessment-type exercise, which will seek to support the ongoing viability of services where fees are particularly low.

The details of this undertaking are being developed by the Department and as part of this development, every effort will be made to carefully manage the potential out-of-pocket expenses to families occasioned by this policy.

It should be noted that, as with 2024/2025 Fee Increase Assessment, the new exercise will be designed to identify and support those services whose fees may have been frozen at a very low level.

The details of the 2025/2026 fee increase process will be communicated to the sector once finalised.

Regarding staff pay, a new Core Funding element, the Staff Funding Additional Contribution, has been introduced to centre-based services in programme year 2025/2026 to facilitate the distribution of €45 million in funding ringfenced for staff pay and conditions in Budget 2025.

The Staff Funding Additional Contribution is intended to support early learning and childcare services to meet the increased minimum rates of pay in the sector as a result of new Employment Regulation Orders (EROs) negotiated by the independent Joint Labour Committee.

The EROs apply to workers who are wholly or mainly in direct contact with children and who are involved in the education and/or care of children, or who may work directly with children in addition to their day-to-day managerial duties and responsibilities.

The Staff Funding Additional Contribution is an additional contribution, and therefore will be allocated to services in addition to their base rate, minimum base rate, and Graduate Premiums.

The Government is committed to supporting a new ERO process in the second half of 2026 and to making available a similar sum in 2026 for a further future round of pay improvements, subject to the deliberations of the independent Joint Labour Committee.

The State is providing Core Funding to promote the interests of children and their families and workers in a privately operated sector. A service’s Core Funding grant is designed to support the costs of:

• Staff pay and conditions, including contact and non-contact time, holiday pay, sick pay and other employer costs
• Administrative staff/time
• Non-staff overhead costs