Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 3 July 2018
480. Deputy Anne Rabbitte asked the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs the number of children in each net income bracket (details supplied) who are in receipt of childcare subsidies under the single affordable childcare scheme. [28870/18]
View answerWhen the Affordable Childcare Scheme is introduced, it will replace the existing targeted childcare subsidy schemes, and the current under 3s universal scheme, with a single scheme, in which families will be able to benefit from either a universal or a targeted subsidy.
The universal subsidy will be available for all children between 6 months and 3 years old, as well as those who are already 3 years old but who do not yet qualify for entry into the ECCE / free pre-school programme. All children between 6 months and 3 years old who are in a Tusla-registered childcare setting will, therefore, regardless of parental income, qualify for a childcare subsidy under the Affordable Childcare Scheme.
The basis for determining the level of targeted subsidy will be a family's net income. On the introduction of the Affordable Childcare Scheme, all families with a net income (after allowable deductions) of less than €47,500 per annum will qualify for some level of targeted subsidy.
In advance of the Scheme starting, there is considerable difficulty in predicting the number of children who will benefit from subsidies under the Scheme, because of uncertainty around 'dynamic' effects on the demand for childcare. The increased subsidies and wider access to subsidies that will arise with the Affordable Childcare Scheme are likely to increase the demand for Tusla-registered childcare (including Tusla-registered childminders) through increasing parents' participation in the labour market and through incentivising parents to switch from unregistered childcare to registered childcare. The lack of Irish evidence on the price elasticity of demand for childcare makes it hard to estimate the likely scale of these effects.
In addition, the number of children who benefit from subsidies will depend on the response by childcare providers, as the subsidies will only be available to providers who choose to participate in the Scheme. A particular uncertainty here is the number of currently unregistered childminders who are eligible to register with Tusla and who may choose to do so for the first time in order to take part in the Scheme. While the number of registered childminders is small at the moment, work is commencing on the development of a childminding action plan, which is intended to increase the number of registered childminders over the years ahead.
As a result of these various uncertainties, at this stage we do not have a single estimate of the likely number of beneficiaries or the cost of the scheme.
However, the Regulatory Impact Analysis published in December 2017 estimated that the full-year costs of the Scheme might amount to between €165m and €193m, though the full impact of the dynamic effects might only be seen over time rather than in the first year of the Scheme. The €165m cost estimate, which was drawn from a model developed by the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, assumed that approximately 82,000 children would benefit from childcare subsidies under the Affordable Childcare Scheme, of which approximately 59,000 were expected to benefit from a targeted subsidy and 23,000 from a universal subsidy.
The estimates of the number of beneficiaries, including the likely number of beneficiaries in different income-brackets, continue to be re-examined on an on-going basis, as new data becomes available.
