Joe Neville (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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410. To ask the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality if her Department has been made aware of the situation with a childcare provider (detail supplied) and their lapse in payment of core funding; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [23207/26]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The Department is aware of the situation regarding Enquiring Minds Childcare and officials in the Department have engaged with the childcare provider in relation to Core Funding payments. Communications have issued directly to this childcare provider via the Departments representations system and the Core Funding Contractual Requirements Reporting System. Communications have also issued to the childcare provider via Pobal, the Core Funding Scheme Administrator.

Department officials can confirm that the childcare provider did not receive their full Core Funding allocation as their services applied for Core Funding and accepted the Core Funding Partner Service Funding Agreement late in the programme year.

The Department have a responsibility to ensure that all funding is managed in a fair and transparent manner. Due to this, the Department will only approve Core Funding payments to a service for periods when a Core Funding Partner Service Funding Agreement is in place.

Once these three services applied for Core Funding and subsequently signed their Funding Agreement for the provision of Core Funding, their application was progressed and they received funding from the date of contracting into the scheme.

I do not want any service to be faced with financial sustainability issues and officials in the Department are committed to working with any such service to support them in delivering early learning and childcare for the public good.

There are financial supports available from the Department where a service is experiencing financial difficulty or has concerns about their viability, which can be accessed through their local City/County Childcare Committee while remaining within Core Funding.