This Government made a promise to tackle the cost of childcare, and we will do that. In doing so, however, we must ensure there is an early childhood care and education, ECCE, sector there to provide the service. If the current core funding model was fit for purpose, we would not have had a situation where hundreds of our early educators and childcare providers descended on Leinster House last week to express their dissatisfaction with the new model outside the gates. It is going to impact, in particular, on those smaller ECCE operators that, in many instances, are in rural constituencies like mine. It is wrong that these childcare providers have to go on social welfare during the summer months. I ask that the core funding model be amended and that we invest in these ECCE providers so we can keep them open and save them.

I appreciate the Deputy's concerns. Core funding is worth up to €221 million to the sector, so it is a significant provision. To access the new funding, services must guarantee to maintain fees at or below September 2021 levels. It is based on operating hours, the number of places offered by services, the age group of the children to whom places are offered and the number of graduate lead educators. The Department has issued a funding guarantee that all services will receive at least the same level of funding and core funding as they received in the 2021-22 programme. Approximately 1% of services will see the same income from core funding as they received this year. A large majority of services will see substantial increases in funding. I will talk to the Deputy about this issue because there is obviously a mismatch between what is being said-----

There is correspondence-----