Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 22 June 2023
289. Deputy Colm Burke asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the measures his Department will take to ensure greater funding is provided for parents under the national childcare scheme to reduce the cost of childcare and ensure greater availability of full-time places in childcare; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30287/23]
View answerThe National Childcare Scheme (NCS) is a subsidy provided to help parents to meet the cost of childcare and allow children to access Early Learning and School Age Childcare.
My Department has made a number of recent enhancements to the NCS to reduce the cost of childcare for parents availing of the NCS, these include:
• The removal of the practice of deducting hours spent in pre-school or school from NCS awards, meaning that parents are able to use their full awarded subsidised NCS hours regardless of whether their children are in pre-school or school.
• The increase in the upper age eligibility for the NCS universal subsidy from 3 years to all children under 15 years.
• An increase in the NCS minimum subsidy from €0.50 to €1.40 per hour.
The NCS is specifically designed to allow for rapid changes to subsidies, income thresholds and certain other eligibility criteria as Government decisions are made and exchequer funding becomes available. Any further changes to the NCS will be considered as part of Budget 2024 and announced on Budget day.
Regarding the availability of full time childcare places, some €69 million was allocated to the Early Learning and Childcare sector in the revised National Development Plan (NDP) allocation. This will enable significant capital investment in early learning and childcare across three pillars: (1) Building Blocks - Improvement Grant (now closed), (2) Building Blocks - Capacity Grant and (3) Building Blocks - Innovation Grant.
Work is currently underway on the design and delivery of the Building Blocks – Capacity Grant which will address capacity gaps, fund an expansion in existing services and invest in the development of new services where most needed. The Building Blocks – Innovation Grant will pilot a range of innovative initiatives such as outdoor early learning and childcare services and I hope to announce details of these schemes in the coming months.
