676. Deputy Ciarán Ahern asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality whether core funding is paid for childcare capacity that is frequently though non-consecutively unavailable due to room closures; if her Department monitors cumulative room closures across a programme year; the safeguards in place to ensure that public funds are protected where services are unable to deliver their funded capacity; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [51651/26]

To become a Partner Service and receive Core Funding grant allocations, an approved provider must first enter into a Core Funding Partner Service Funding Agreement with the Department and comply with its terms and conditions. These conditions are primarily designed to support affordability, quality, transparency, and sustainability in the sector and to safeguard public funds. Requirements of the grant include fee management conditions, offering the National Childcare Scheme and the Early Childhood Care and Education programme to eligible children and the requirement to submit financial returns to the Department.

To generate Core Funding allocations, Partner Services are required to submit an application and service profile, which detail their operations and the services they provide. The Department understands that Early Learning and Childcare services have to be dynamic and flexible in their day-to-day staffing arrangements. Therefore, Partner Services describe a “typical week” in their application to reduce the administrative burden of maintaining an application. The Department’s definition of a Typical Week is a period representing an average operating week, where the more typical staff rostering is evident. Within the context of Core Funding, the Department defines a material or significant change as one which affects the Typical Week for a period greater than 4 weeks. This is under the assumption that the Staffed Capacity of the typical week as declared on the Core Funding Application is maintained.

The Funding Agreement also defines “Operating Hours per Week” as the time the service is open and available to children; it does not include hours where the service is open but not available to children. It also defines “Operating Weeks per Year” as the number of weeks the service is open and available to children; it does not include weeks where the service is open but not available to children. For the purpose of Core Funding a service must be open for at least 3 days for that week to be considered an operating week.

It should be noted that inputting data on the basis of the Typical Week clause does not exempt a Partner Service from having to comply with other terms and conditions of the grant, including the need to ensure that staffed capacity is genuinely available to parents for all operating hours per week and operating weeks per year.

Partner Services must update their application when a material change has occurred and must change their operating weeks per year in their application if service is not open and available to children for at least 3 days of a week.

In addition, through the Funding Agreement the Partner Service agrees that if the amount of service offered is decreased, the Fee Charged must also decrease by at least the same proportion. Any such decrease in service offering and Fees must occur at the same time.

If someone has concerns about a potential breach of Core Funding fee management conditions by a Partner Service, which has occurred during the 2025/2026 Programme Year, they may seek to have this examined and a conclusion reached through the Core Funding Fee Review Process.

If there is a possibility of a potential breach, the City/County Childcare Committee can, with the permission of the individual, assist with initiating the Fee Review Process.

The first point of contact before any Fee Review Stage is initiated is with your local CCC. If your local CCC receives a query where a potential fee increase is raised, they can get this examined through the Core Funding Fee Review Process.

Contact details for all CCCs can be found on https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-children-disability-and-equality/publications/city-and-county-childcare-committees/.