Written answer
Departmental Schemes
2753. Deputy Mark Wall asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the number of ECCE services getting payments per child, by Core Funding, ECCE, Linc, and Graduate uplift. [55045/26]
Comment on this
Please see the following in relation to the number of ECCE services, which has been provided by Pobal, the Scheme Administrator in relation to payments broken down by Core Funding, ECCE, Linc, and Graduate uplift, for the 2025/26 ECCE Programme Year.
3,889 services had an ECCE 2025 budget approval of which 3,856 of these had one or more children registered on ECCE at some point in the year.
2,562 of the 3,889 services had a Linc/AIM Level 1 payment within the Programme Year.
3,631 of the 3,889 services were Core Funding Partners for all or some of the Programme Year. Of these, 2,367 were in receipt of a Graduate Lead Educator premium.
It is important to note the following methodology in relation to the above:
The total number of ECCE services includes those that closed or underwent a change of circumstance within the programme year or opened within the programme year.
The total number of services with a Linc/AIM level 1 payment in the year excludes services who had an approved Linc application but no payment from this total.
The request has been interpreted to mean that a service should be classified as "In receipt of a Graduate Lead Educator (GLE) Premium" if it received a GLE Premium at any time during the Core Funding 2025/26 programme year. Under Core Funding, services may submit multiple applications during a programme year and their eligibility for a GLE Premium may change over time. As a result, the analysis was carried out at service level across the full programme year rather than at application level. Applications were assessed to determine whether a GLE Premium amount greater than €0 had been approved. A service classified as in receipt of a GLE Premium may not have received the premium for the entire programme year; the classification indicates that the service received the premium at least once during the 2025/26 programme call.