Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 27 May 2021
23. Deputy Holly Cairns asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the progress being made in relation to the objective for all parents to have access to quality, affordable childcare in the National Strategy for Women and Girls. [28652/21]
View answerI am pleased to inform the Deputy of the positive progress made on improving access to high quality, and affordable early learning and care and school-age childcare (ELC/SAC). Key achievements include:
- Since 2015, State investment has increased by 141%.
- Since 2018, all children are entitled to two full years of the ECCE Programme. For the current programme year, there are more than 102,000 children enrolled.
- The National Childcare Scheme was introduced in 2019. To date, over 105,200 applications have been submitted for the NCS relating to over 99,400 children.
- Since 2016, the Access and Inclusion Model or AIM, has supported almost 15,300 children with a disability to access and meaningfully participate in the ECCE Programme.
- Over the period 2015-2019, 27,433 ELC/SAC places were funded under my Department’s Annual Capital Programme.
Steps have also been taken to improve quality. This includes regulatory reform, the introduction of new qualification requirements and continued roll-out of training in the curriculum and quality frameworks.
Since the onset of Covid-19, my Department has also focused on putting in place a range of supports for ELC/SAC. The objective of these supports have been to:
- support providers’ sustainability to enable services return to normal once restrictions were lifted;
- support providers to retain their staff;
- ensure that ELC/SAC could reopen and remain open, even at very low levels of occupancy;
- ensure that ELC/SAC could operate safely for children, families and staff;
- ensure that increased costs associated with public health requirements, and lower demand / occupancy were not passed on to parents;
- achieve administrative efficiency through the continued use of existing funding schemes and other whole of economy supports; and
- protect exchequer investment.
Supports included the continuation of DCEDIY subsidy schemes on an ex-gratia basis (12 March – 5 April 2020); the Temporary Wage Subsidy Childcare Scheme (6 April – 28 June 2020); the Reopening Funding Package (29 June – 23 August 2020), the July Stimulus Package that included the EWSS and a Sustainability Fund (from 24 August to end December 2020) and tailored funding arrangements to respond to Level 5 restrictions in the post-Christmas period, that included a new Covid-19 Operating Support Payment and a new Covid-19 strand of the Sustainability Fund, in addition to the EWSS.
There is strong evidence of the effectiveness of these supports. Data on services that have closed and opened in 2020 are directly comparable to 2019 so there has been no loss of capacity. Revenue data indicates that the number of employees in the sector has not changed substantially over the course of the pandemic. Moreover, data from the Annual Early Years Sector Profile 2020 revealed no significant increase in fees charged to parents.
While my Department continues to respond COVID-19 challenges in the sector, the importance of long-term and long-lasting development and reform is ever more important and progress continues to be made in this area.
One of the major objectives in the First 5 Strategy, is that babies and young children have access to safe, high-quality, developmentally appropriate ELC/SAC which reflects diversity of need. To meet this objective, the following Strategic Actions have been identified:
- Make high-quality ELC/SAC for more affordable
- Maintain and extend the supply of high-quality ELC/SAC; and
- Ensure that ELC/SAC provision promotes participation, strengthens social inclusion and embraces diversity.
To meet this objective, First 5 identified a range of actions and also signposts major reforms, including a new workforce development plan, a new funding model and a new operating model for the sector. There is also a commitment to at least double investment in ELC/SAC by 2028.
The First 5 Annual Implementation Report 2019 published in November 2020 reports on progress made on these actions, with 90% of all 2019 milestones met.
The First 5 Annual Implementation Report 2020 will be published in the coming months.
