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Childcare Services

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 9 November 2021

Tuesday, 9 November 2021

Questions (481)

Peadar Tóibín

Question:

481. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the measures his Department has undertaken to reduce the cost of childcare in June 2020; and the policies his Department plans to implement to reduce the cost of childcare by June 2024. [54108/21]

View answer

Written answers

Addressing affordability in Early Learning and Care and School Age Children (ELC and SAC) is a priority for the Department. An Expert Group has been convened by the Department to develop a new funding model for ELC and SAC. The Expert Group is tasked with examining the current model of funding, its effectiveness in delivering affordable, quality, sustainable and inclusive services and considering how additional resourcing can be delivered for the sector to achieve these objectives.

The Expert Group are supported by a research partner, who have produced and published a set of working papers, with three that directly address affordability issues.

The report of the Expert Group is currently being drafted and is on track to be submitted to Minister in November, before being submitted to Government. The work of the Expert Group has significantly informed the developments being introduced in Budget 2022. The full implementation of the Expert Group's recommendations is likely to be a multi-annual process, as and when funding becomes available on an incremental basis.

Budget 2022 brought in a transformative package of measures for the childcare sector. The significant additional funding includes delivering quality for children and affordability for parents. This translates to €716m (an increase of €78m from €638million in 2021) for the Early Learning and Childcare sector for 2022.

The package of measures for the ELC and SAC sector contains a number of elements. A significant feature of the new funding stream relates to, where, in return for a commitment that fees to parents will not increase, providers will be supported in meeting their operating costs, including increased costs related to improved quality measures.

A key vehicle for the delivery of measures to address affordability is the National Childcare Scheme.

Budget 22 will see two significant reforms to the National Childcare Scheme (NCS) to enhance affordability. The first change is the discontinuation of the practice of deducting hours spent in ECCE or school from the entitlement to NCS subsidised hours. Currently, where both parents in a household are in work or study, eligible families can receive a subsidy for up to 45 hours (enhanced hours) per week and, for households where a parent is not in work or study they can receive up to 20 hours (standard hours) per week of subsidy. Where a child is in pre-school, ECCE or school these hours are subtracted from their entitlement to NCS subsidised hours. With this change, parents will be able to avail of all these hours regardless of time spent in school or ECCE. It is anticipated that this will have the most significant impact on children in socio-economically disadvantaged communities and, on services with high concentrations of families from socio-economically disadvantaged communities.

Secondly, the universal subsidy will be made available to all families with children up to the age of 15 from September 2022. Parents do not have to undergo an assessment to avail of this subsidy. The universal subsidy provides €0.50 cent per hour towards the cost of a registered childcare place up to a maximum of 45 hours a week, which totals €1,170 per annum. It is estimated an additional 40,000 children may benefit from the extension of the universal subsidy.

The National Childcare Scheme is designed so that it can change and grow based on future Government policy decisions and as additional funding becomes available.

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