Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 30 April 2024
98. Deputy Cathal Crowe asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if he intends to reform the national childcare scheme and examine ways it can support lower-income families better; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19135/24]
View answerMy Department is providing over €369 million in subsidies through the National Childcare Scheme (NCS) to parents of over 180,000 children to meet the cost of early learning and childcare.
The subsidies are progressive in nature.
All families can receive a universal subsidy, but the highest subsides are provided to families with the lowest levels of income through an income assessment process.
Additionally, the NCS sponsorship arrangement allows designated bodies to refer children for free access to early learning and childcare on child welfare, protection, family support or other specified grounds.
Significant enhancements have been introduced to the NCS in recent years, including:
• Removing of the practice of deducting hours spent in pre-school or school from the entitlement to subsidised hours;
• Extending the NCS universal subsidy to all children under 15; and
• Increasing the minimum hourly subsidy available under the Scheme from 50 cent to €1.40.
From this September, the minimum subsidy will increase again to €2.14 per hour alongside increases in the sponsor rates from children over 1.
These enhancements, coupled with a Core Funding requirement on services to offer the Scheme to all eligible families, including sponsored arrangements, has led to a 20 per cent increase in the number of services offering the NCS, a 52 per cent increase in the number of sponsored children and more than a 100% increase of total number of children benefiting in the last two years alone.
This year, my Department will begin the process of reviewing the NCS with a view to identifying further enhancements that can be made to the Scheme.
This Scheme is specifically designed to allow for rapid changes to subsidies, income thresholds and certain other eligibility criteria as Government decisions are made and Exchequer funding becomes available.
