Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 4 October 2022
482. Deputy Ivana Bacik asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if a child who is in full-time childcare in receipt of the ECCE hours is eligible for further subsidies under the national childcare scheme for the other hours of childcare they receive on a daily basis; the number of children on the ECCE scheme who are in full-time care; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [48437/22]
View answerAs of 2 May, the National Childcare Scheme (NCS) no longer deducts hours spent in pre-school, or school, from NCS awards. This means that parents may use their full awarded subsidised NCS hours for pre-school, or school-aged children, regardless of the term week.
If a child is registered for 15 hours per week under ECCE, parents can claim on the NCS for the hours that a child attends outside of these 15 hours. This is because the NCS subsidy cannot be claimed for the hours that a child is attending ECCE, or school.
For example, the NCS subsidy may be used for:
- childcare used before preschool or school starts in the morning (e.g. breakfast club)
- after-school childcare
- childcare used outside of preschool or school term weeks
The removal of wraparound is a substantive change that allows families whose parents are not in work or study to avail of more childcare hours for their children outside of pre-school/school hours.
Lastly, full-time care is identified as having combined ECCE and NCS weekly claimed hours that are greater than 25 total hours.
In the week beginning 12 September 2022, there was a total of 101,387 children registered for ECCE. As defined above, 17,618 were also registered for NCS and are considered to be in full-time care.
