Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 18 January 2024
289. Deputy Kathleen Funchion asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the current estimated parental spend on childcare fees from the 2021/2022 or 2022/2023 Pobal Annual Early Years Sector Profile Report, in tabular form; when he expects the annual report to be published; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2136/24]
View answerThe Pobal Annual Early Years Sector Profile (AEYSP) provides a detailed overview of the Early Learning and Care (ELC) and School-Age Childcare (SAC) sector in Ireland, including the numbers of children in receipt of state subsidies, information on ELC and SAC fees, staff wages, qualifications and turnover.
In December 2023 the Department launched the Early Learning and Childcare Data website, replacing the traditional paper-based AEYSP report. The website provides a new and innovative way of displaying administrative data as well as survey data collected annually from over 4,400 early learning and childcare services across the country, supporting evidence-informed policy development and planning.
This new website will include a series of interactive dashboards that will be released by Pobal on behalf of the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (DCEDIY) over the coming weeks and months.
Released sequentially, the first iteration of this new dashboard will see the 2021/22 data published alongside the 2022/23 data. As the dashboard is still under development the ‘Service Overview’ section is currently available with more information including in relation to fees, being made available in the coming weeks.
In 2020/21, which provides the most recently published Pobal Annual Early Years Sector Profile data, the average weekly fee nationally per child for full day care was €186.84, for part-time was €110.92 and for sessional care was €74.20. The fees for all types of provision remained almost the same, with less than 0.5% change for all types of care compared to 2019/20. It should be noted that this fee data is prior to the application of any subsidies.
The 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. The subsidy is progressive and depends on a number of factors including the age of the child, the income of the household and the number of children in the family. Those with the lowest incomes receive the highest subsidies. The subsidy is subtracted from the fee and the balance (if the fee is not entirely offset) is then charged to the parents. These subsidies can be as much as €229.50 per week.
My Department has made a number of enhancements to the NCS in recent Budgets to substantially 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 from January 2023. This will increase again to €2.14 from September 2024 on foot of Budget 24 measures.
In addition where a child is participating in ECCE for part of the day €64.50 will offset against any fee.
Working in tandem, Fee Management under Core Funding and NCS subsidies provides significant affordability benefits for parents in terms of reducing their early learning and childcare costs.
My Department does not hold individualised fee data for parents. These are local agreements between parents and early learning and childcare providers that reflect diverse needs and usage patterns, with fees varying within and across counties.
