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Childcare Services

Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 24 March 2022

Thursday, 24 March 2022

Ceisteanna (307)

Peadar Tóibín

Ceist:

307. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the number of families who are eligible for the after-school childcare scheme; the number of families who are currently supported by the after-school childcare scheme; and the number of persons under the after-school childcare scheme for the past five years. [15110/22]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Freagraí scríofa

The After School Child Care (ASCC) Programme was administered and funded by my Department as part of the Training and Employment Childcare (TEC) Programme. The TEC programme closed to new entrants on 14th February 2020 following the introduction of the National Childcare Scheme (NCS). The  ASCC provided up to one year of afterschool care for primary school children for certain categories of working parents/guardians and parents/guardians on certain employment programmes (not including Community Employment) based on eligibility criteria provided by the Department of Social Protection.

ASCC was available for a once off maximum of 52 weeks and for the final programme year for any new applicants of 2019/2020 this allowance had to be used consecutively. The ASCC ceased operating once all participants registered completed their allotted time on the programme within the 2020/2021 programme year. Therefore there are no longer any children availing of the ASCC.

The table below which outlines the numbers of children registered with the ASCC programme for the past five programme years. This information was provided by Pobal who act as the scheme administrator for my Department.

Programme Call

Number of unique children

ASCC 2017/18

363

ASCC 2018/19

228

ASCC 2019/20

87

ASCC 2020/21

14

ASCC 2021/22

0

Total

584*

* A child might have been registered for ASCC in more than one year. For that reason, the total number of unique children will be lower than the sum of the number of unique children registered by year.

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