Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 7 July 2021
96. Deputy Jennifer Whitmore asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the input he has had on the Economic Recovery Plan with regard to childcare during and after the pandemic; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36786/21]
View answerMy Department has engaged with the Department of An Taoiseach on the Economic Recovery Plan, particularly in respect of content about early learning and care and school age childcare (ELC/SAC) set out under Pillar 2, "Helping people back into work".
The Economic Recovery Plan notes that Government has set out ambitious commitments to deliver on the needs of children and their parents across the areas of affordability with continued investment in the National Childcare Scheme (NCS); flexibility and choice with an increase in supply; inclusion with additional supports and services for children and families with additional needs; and with continued efforts to improve the quality of ELC/SAC, including improved pay and conditions of those working in that sector. These developments have been crucial to throughout the pandemic, and will continue to be after it subsides.
There are a number of measures in place to ensure affordability for parents. Families may be entitled to subsidies under the NCS, which aims to improve outcomes for children, reduce poverty, facilitate labour activation, and tangibly reduce the cost of early learning and childcare for tens of thousands of families. The scheme comprises of two types of subsidies:
- A universal subsidy for children of pre-ECCE age who are availing of ELC services from an approved provider. The universal subsidy is not means-tested and is available to all qualifying families of any income level.
- An income-assessed subsidy is payable for children from 24 weeks to 15 years of age who are availing of ELC/SAC services from an approved provider. The level of subsidy is determined by the family's reckonable income.
With NCS, those earning less than €26,000 net per year will get the highest level of subsidy for up to 45 hours per week, provided they are involved in some level of work, or some study, significantly contributing to affordability.
NCS offers different types of application processes to suit families and ensure they are being assessed on the most accurate and up to date circumstances. For example, families can apply for a ‘Sudden Change Assessment’ option allows for applicants to declare that they have had an ongoing change to their income. This applies to people who have lost a job or their income has reduced on an ongoing basis for reasons outside of their control as may be the case in the context of the economic impact of Covid-19.
Since the onset of Covid-19, my Department has put in place a range of supports for ELC/SAC services. 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;
- nensure 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 have 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 continued eligibility for the EWSS.
Following engagement between my Department and the Department of Finance, and in line with the Economic Recovery Plan, ELC/SAC employers continue to be entitled to access the EWSS with an exemption to having to demonstrate the drop in turnover that applies to other sectors. Since October 2020, EWSS has been paid at enhanced rates and these rates are estimated to cover, on average, 80% of staff costs in the sector, or 50% of total operating costs.
Government has committed to continuing the payment of these rates throughout quarter 3 of 2021. My Department will continue to engage with the Department of Finance in the planning for quarter 4 of this year and beyond in respect of the ELC/SAC sector. There is strong evidence of the effectiveness of these supports. The data on services that have closed and opened in 2020 are directly comparable to 2019 so there has been no loss of capacity:
- 197 services that were on the Early Years Register reported permanent closure to Tusla in 2020 compared to 196 in 2019.
- 91 new services were registered in 2020 compared to 93 in 2019.
Data from the Office of the Revenue Commissioners indicates that the number of employees in the sector has not changed substantially over the course of the pandemic
Data from the Annual Early Years Sector Profile 2020 Survey revealed no significant increase in fees charged to parents. The deadline for the 2021 survey has recently passed and this data will now begin to be cleaned and analysed. I anticipate this data being available in the coming months to assist in planning.
Looking to the future, my Department will be developing a new funding model for early learning and care and school age childcare that provides additional resourcing to services in line with measures to improve quality and affordability. An Expert Group has been progressing this work since late 2019 and I expect their report to be finalised in November.
