145. Deputy Maeve O'Connell asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality for an update on the work of her Department in encouraging childcare providers to engage in core funding. [12770/26]

Core Funding has been designed with maximum participation of providers in mind as reflected in the year-on-year growth of investment in the Scheme (rising from €259 million in year 1 to over €390 million in year 4). This represents an increase of over 50% in Core Funding in three years.

I was delighted to announce further investment in Core Funding in Budget 2026. The additional funding being made available in 2026 will see the allocation for Core Funding in the next programme year, which begins in September 2026, increase to over €480 million. That is an additional €87.6 million on the current full year allocation, or a 22% increase.

The allocation for programme year 2026/27 will facilitate:

• Natural capacity growth of 4.2% across the sector.

• Additional capacity growth created by the new Building Blocks grants.

• Support for providers in adhering to the fee management conditions including the continued fee freeze and reductions to the maximum fee caps in the 2026/2027 programme year.

• Support for improved pay for early years educators and school-age childcare practitioners with implementation of new 2025 Employment Regulation Orders, with further increases in pay to be supported through enhancement in year 5 of the scheme.

In addition to this increased allocation, participation in Core Funding unlocks additional support for services to access, including:

• Access to wider financial supports where a service is experiencing financial difficulty or has concerns about their viability

• Access to enhanced support for services caring for a concentrated number of children facing disadvantage through Equal Start; and

• Opportunities to apply for capital grants through the Department

Participation in Core Funding is optional, but it remains open to all registered providers subject to their agreement to the terms and conditions of the Core Funding Agreement.

It is a matter for providers to decide whether they wish to sign up to Core Funding and avail of the significant financial supports it offers to providers and the certainty it gives to parents through the associated fee management measures.

It should be noted that uptake of Core Funding remains strong. The fourth programme year of Core Funding began on 1 September 2025 and as of 9 February, there were 4,615 services signed up to Year 4 of Core Funding. This represents 93% uptake of all eligible services. This is the highest number of Partner Services in Core Funding at any point since the scheme was launched in 2022 and the number continues to grow.

I am encouraged by this rate of participation: it shows that Core Funding is working as intended, and the vast majority of families will continue to benefit from the scheme’s fee management conditions.