Written answer
Childcare Services
The Government’s phased plan aims to reduce childcare fees to a maximum of €200 monthly by 2029 while expanding early-learning and afterschool places through stronger provider funding and State-led facilities. 2026 measures lower fee caps and broaden National Childcare Scheme subsidies, with further actions to follow in Phase 2 later this year.
127. Deputy Paul McAuliffe asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality to provide the latest update on the Programme for Government commitment to progressively reduce the cost of childcare to €200 per month per child through the national childcare scheme; and the way in which she intends to address the issue of afterschool childcare places. [65804/26]
Comment on this
Shaping the Future: The Early Years Action Plan, Phase 1 report (published last December) sets out measures to achieve key Programme for Government commitments on the affordability, quality, and accessibility of early learning and care (ELC) and school-age childcare (SAC). Two of the main objectives of Shaping the Future are to reduce parental fees to a maximum of €200 per month over the lifetime of the Government and to increase the supply of places, strengthening supply-side funding to support services’ sustainability and staff wages, while introducing State-led facilities to complement other measures to increase capacity.
The Action Plan adopts a phased approach that enables action to be taken in 2026 while allowing adequate time for a broad public consultation and analysis on longer-term actions.
The consultation process, which has taken place throughout this year, has had a number of channels designed to facilitate the participation of a wide range of stakeholders. The final stage in the consultation will be a national forum on 23rd September, which will build on insights from surveys, local consultation events, and stakeholder engagement and will help inform future policy direction. Results of this consultation, and additional analysis, will inform Phase 2 of Shaping the Future.
Phase 2, which will be published later this year, will set out actions to be undertaken from 2027 through to the end of 2029.
A number of steps have already been taken in 2025 and 2026 to reduce the costs of ELC and SAC for parents. 2026 actions include further reduction in some of the highest fees paid by parents by lowering the maximum fees that Core Funding Partner Services can charge. These latest maximum fee caps, which apply to all Core Funding Partner Services, place a limit on the maximum fees that can be charged. Under the new maximum fee caps, the highest possible cost for a typical full day place of 45 hours per week has dropped from around €198 per week to €183.70 per week, with the universal subsidy under the National Childcare Scheme. Higher subsidies are available for many parents, depending on their level of income and the age and number of children in their family.
In addition, from September 2026, out of pocket costs for lower-income families have been reduced through changes to the National Childcare Scheme. These measures include:
- An increase to the lower (base) income threshold of the income-assessed subsidy from €26,000 to €34,000, to ensure that families with incomes below the relative income poverty line receive the maximum subsidies.
- An increase to the upper income threshold (income limit) of the income-assessed subsidy from €60,000 to €68,000, to extend income-assessed subsidies to more families.
- An increase to the multiple child deduction (MCD) component of the income-assessed subsidy for families with two children under the age of 15 from €4,300 to €5,500, and for families with three or more children under the age of 15 from €8,600 to €11,000.
In Budget 2027 I hope to build on these steps as we continue the journey towards the objective of reducing parental fees to a maximum of €200 per month.