Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 13 July 2022
411. Deputy Ivana Bacik asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the additional funding required to reduce the costs of childcare for parents to €50 per week or €100 per month; if he will provide a breakdown of the additional allocations required in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38752/22]
View answerIt is assumed the Deputy is referring to the National Childcare Scheme (NCS) as the means through which the cost of childcare is to be reduced.
In Budget 2022, I announced an end to the practice of deducting hours spent in pre-school or school from the entitlement to NCS subsidised hours, benefiting an estimated 5,000 children from low income families since 2 May 2022. I also announced the extension of the universal subsidy to all children under 15 from September 2022, benefiting up to 40,000 children. Full year estimates of these changes have been factored into the costs below but the impact of these changes will not be fully known until Q4 2022.
It is not feasible to consistently apply a subsidy to all families using the NCS which would result in the same flat payment for all families.
To model on closest equivalence the estimated costs below are based on the hourly rate of a full-time service at the average national full-time rate. The average hourly fee rate is applied across all model types. The costings above are based on the average fee rate per the sector profile 20/21, which is €186.84, which equates to €4.15 per hour for a 45 hour user. Therefore the below costings are meant to be indicative only and should be interpreted with caution as the fees can vary greatly depending on the age of the child, the location and the provider.
Age - The average weekly fees for different types of provision vary depending on the age of the child. The level of fees decrease as the child gets older, both for full day and part-time provision. The highest fees charged are for babies up to 1 year (€192.06 for full day), while provision for children aged between 5 to 6 years is the lowest at €178.64 for full day.
Location - The level of fees charged by services varies depending on their location. Differences are observed both between counties and also within counties depending on the level of affluence or disadvantage of the community in which the service is located. It is worth noting that averages can mask significant variations within counties. For example, the highest weekly full day fee charged by an individual service was in Dún Laoghaire Rathdown (€324.35). However, the lowest weekly fee charged in the same local authority was €134. Historically, fees are higher in urban areas and along the East coast.
Provider - As a general principle, services charge a fixed fee across which applies across a banded number of hours per day (a session). These models may, for example, follow the session types outlined in regulation. These are:
Less than 3.5 hours
3.5 to 5 hours
Greater than 5 hours
In practical terms, this means that any given service may have the same “full-time” fee whether, for example, a parent regularly uses 6 hours or 8 hours.
The NCS subsidies are calculated based on hours used, so, from the above example, the parent may pay a higher co-payment for using less hours within those session bands by virtue of the lower subsidy available for lower hours.
The estimates are derived from current levels of usage and expenditure adjusted for the Budget 22 changes. These individual estimates are based on no behavioural change and should be interpreted with caution.
It should be noted that changes to subsidies may result in changes to patterns and levels of usage by families. These changes are likely to be more pronounced as the cost of childcare to parents reduces. The respective estimated costs are in addition to the existing costs associated with the provision of the NCS.
|
Effective reduction in cost to: |
Approximate Cost |
|
€50 weekly |
€270 million |
|
€100 monthly |
€355 million |
