Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 1 December 2020
533. Deputy Richard Bruton asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if his Department has recorded a significant drop-off in children in early childhood settings or in the number of providers offering service during Covid-19. [40111/20]
View answerMy Department has not recorded a significant drop off in the number of early learning and care providers or in the number of children attending these services.
The number of early learning and care services which are currently registered with Tulsa, the independent regulator, to provide services is 4, 209, which compares with 4, 317 in March 2020, before early learning and care services were closed due to Covid, a reduction of just 2%.
My Department does not have information on the total number of children attending early learning and care services, as providers are not required to provide data on the number of children attending in a private, full fee paying capacity. However data from the Department subsidised schemes shows does not indicate a significant drop off in numbers attending.
The number of children availing of the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme on 01 November 2020 was 101,150 which is 1.7% less than ECCE registrations on 1 November 2019. This slight reduction was expected due to demographic changes and is in line with trends from previous years.
In relation to the Community Childcare Subvention Plus (CCSP) and the Training and Employment Childcare (TEC) programmes the registrations for these combined on 01 November 2020 was 54,309. This is a 12.4% reduction on the comparable figure for 1 November 2019, which included only CCSP and TEC schemes. A reduction in CCSP and TEC registrations was expected as these schemes closed to new entrants in November 2019 with the introduction of the NCS, and children are aging out of CCSP and TEC.
Numerous supports have been made available to the childcare sector to enable them to continue to deliver services over the Covid period, including the current enhanced Employment Wage Subsidy Scheme (EWSS). Early Learning and Care (ELC) and School Aged Childcare (SAC) providers are eligible for participation in EWSS, regardless of turnover. A special exemption for childcare services to the 30% turnover rule within EWSS was included to recognise the need to retain capacity in the sector and support parents to access childcare places and get back to work. The EWSS provides an average of 80% of a service provider's staff costs, before any income from parental fees or subsidy from my Department.
