Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 25 January 2024
327. Deputy Kathleen Funchion asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the number of children by county/ nationally that are not covered by his Department’s NCS subsidy excluding ECCE services. [3434/24]
View answerI am committed to the ongoing success of the National Childcare Scheme (NCS) which continues to benefit increasing numbers of families across Ireland. Uptake of NCS subsidies has grown yearly with 182,776 children benefitting from the Scheme in 2023. This represents an increase of 48% on 2022. I envisage further growth in 2024.
This growth is driven, in part, by recent changes introduced to the Scheme including the extension of age eligibility for universal subsidies and increases to the minimum hourly subsidy. The minimum hourly subsidy rate is set to increase again in September 2024 from €1.40 to €2.15 – further benefitting families across the State who avail of the Scheme.
My Department and Pobal, the Scheme Administrator only hold individual information on children registered for early learning and childcare subsidy schemes (mainly NCS and ECCE). Neither DCEDIY or Pobal hold information on children who are not registered for NCS or ECCE, or who avail of a service not offering NCS or ECCE.
In addition, it should be noted that whilst some services only provide ECCE, most full-day services also provide ECCE only options. It would be not be possible from available data to differentiate between parents opting to only use ECCE hours and parents who pay entirely privately for extra hours.
