Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 8 September 2020
39. Deputy Ruairí Ó Murchú asked the Minister for Children, Disability, Equality and Integration his plans to put in place measures to ensure childcare providers servicing disadvantaged areas will not be forced into closure when transitioning from the community childcare subvention plus scheme to the national childcare scheme. [22373/20]
View answerI think the Minister is aware of the issues I wish to deal with in this question. They relate to a number of childcare providers operating in Dundalk and Drogheda, namely, in Cox's Demesne, Muirhevnamor, Toberona and Moneymore. I know there is a short-term saver status - I am sorry if I have used the wrong terminology - but I do not think the referral solution the Minister was talking to me about will work in these cases because the sponsor body and the methodology of dealing with it will be just too complicated. The question is whether we can simplify this.
I acknowledge that the Deputy has been engaging with me and I know I am to come back to him with further information. I will continue to do so.
Moving on to the wider point, a key objective of all the measures being put in place by my Department is in the context of the national childcare scheme. When it was introduced last year it was agreed to extend the community childcare subvention plus scheme for as long as users preferred to use it over the new national childcare scheme. By retaining it, we provided income security of eligibility for children as "savers" from the previous scheme.
The intention behind the "savers" provision was to ensure that no one would lose out in the transition to the national childcare scheme. When it was introduced, families could remain on their current entitlements until they were no longer eligible or until they no longer required childcare services.
Many families, however, will be better off on the national childcare scheme and have already changed over to it, or will change over as they learn more about the supports the national childcare scheme provides. It will have advantages for providers as well. Additionally, the national childcare scheme will give subsidies to families who have never received any sorts of subsidies before, and that is important to acknowledge.
This will increase the demand for services. It will help parents with the cost of existing childcare services. Obviously, these developments are good for sustainability everywhere, but also for the sustainability of providers in disadvantaged areas.
Just last week, I think, another measure was introduced or finally applied as regards the income of providers using the national childcare scheme, NCS. The maximum number of hours on the scheme has been increased from 40 to 45, and for children with a parent or guardian available at home, the hours have increased by a third from 15 to 20.
In the event that a service is experiencing sustainability issues, I am also putting in place a new sustainability fund to provide additional support. It will be available to for-profit and not-for-profit systems, and I have discussed that in some detail already with Deputy Funchion.
I appreciate that. First and foremost, the saver status has meant that these services have managed to continue with the quotient of service users already using the service. The problem is that this set of kids, if they were to apply now, probably would not meet the criteria. While there was a workaround for the services, whether it was Tusla, Louth County Council or a number of other bodies that could make referrals, they thought this would be a simple enough process and that, let us say, Tusla would be able to facilitate, but Tusla is not doing so. We are talking about a low-intervention service that really helps families in really disadvantaged areas. The problem is that the people running these services are already talking about people coming to them and saying, "We know that people have left this service and we want our kid to get into the service." They do not necessarily understand the difficulties we are having at the minute. We need to sort out the referral service or a separate funding stream.
I take on board the point about the referral service. To take a step back and provide some context, this is the first year of the NCS. It was getting up and running and then, obviously, we had Covid. There were a lot of plans in place to let these sponsorship organisations know what their role was. There is the Department of Education and Skills, Tusla, the HSE, the Department of Justice and Equality in limited circumstances and local authorities.
I have a sense that some of those do not know the extent of their role and my Department is working at the moment and going through the various sponsors as regards who has the capacity to have an impact in better informing them about those situations. There is a tendency to blame everything on Covid but it has had an impact here. I will continue to engage with the Deputy on these services and revert with a written response on that.
I thank the Minister and I agree with him that there may be a possibility to short-circuit this and sort this problem. We were talking about sponsors and the people I have spoken to would say that if a problem could be circumvented without their having to deal with Tusla, that would be an advantage. I accept that parents can be iffy at times in dealing with Tusla and State agencies. We need something that is simple to use and is not a bureaucratic nightmare. I would appreciate it if the Minister came back to me. It is one of these issues that is capable of being sorted and we need to sort it so that the services that are necessary stay up and running and that we do not let down the kids that require these services.
