Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 12 July 2022
685. Deputy Aindrias Moynihan asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the current demand for places under the early childhood care and education scheme in Cork; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37701/22]
View answerAs outlined in the table below a total of 2,526 children at services in Cork City and a further 10,250 children at services in Cork County benefited from the Early Childhood Care and Education scheme (ECCE) in the 2021/2022 programme year - showing a slight increase on the previous programme year 2020/2021. The 2021/2022 programme year closed on 1 July and the 2022/2023 programme year will open on 22 August 2022.
Table 1: The number of unique children with an approved ECCE registration in Cork County and Cork City by Programme Year.
|
County Division |
ECCE 2020/21 |
ECCE 2021/22 |
|
Cork City |
2,500 |
2,526 |
|
County Cork |
10,105 |
10,250 |
|
Total Unique children * |
12,572 |
12,691 |
* Where a child has a registration in both Cork County and Cork City in the same programme year, they will be included in both county divisions, but only once in the total. This can be seen in 2020/21 for example where adding together Cork City and Cork County would give you a total of 12,605, however the total number of unique children across Cork is actually 12,572. This would indicate that there is a small number of children who had a registration in both city and county in 2020/21.
My Department, in conjunction with Pobal, reviews ECCE capacity on an ongoing basis and works closely with the local City and County Childcare Committees (CCCs) in this regard.
In April of this year, City/County Childcare Committees (CCC) undertook a nationwide survey of capacity in early learning and childcare services. This survey was undertaken as part of the Action Plan put in place by my Department to respond to the early learning and childcare needs of Ukrainian children and their families. This survey was followed in May by the Annual Early Years Sector Profile Survey that is undertaken by Pobal. This will allow for more detailed information on capacity among early learning and childcare services to be gathered for the Annual Early Years Sector Profile Report.
Preliminary analysis of the latest data captured by CCCs and Pobal reveal a drop in vacancy rates across the country – with the national vacancy rate now averaging at 13%.
Furthermore, vacancy rate for ECCE only places for Cork city is 13% and ECCE only places Cork county 14%.
