Written answer
Childcare Services
The Government aims to reduce childcare fees to a maximum of €200 per month over its term, but says this cannot be achieved through Core Funding or the National Childcare Scheme alone. A Phase 2 roadmap will support all publicly funded providers to join Core Funding; meanwhile, ECCE and NCS remain available regardless of provider participation, though fee controls apply only to Core Funding partners.
805. Deputy Claire Kerrane asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the way in which she intends to deliver €200 per month childcare via core funding when this excludes parents whose provider are not in core funding; and if Government commitment to €200 per month is only for some parents. [73229/26]
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). One of the main objectives of Shaping the Future is to reduce parental fees to a maximum of €200 per month over the lifetime of the Government. However, this objective cannot be achieved through the National Childcare Scheme or through Core Funding alone.
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. Phase 2, which will be published later this year, will set out actions to be undertaken from 2027 through to the end of 2029.
To deliver on the Programme for Government commitment to progressively reduce parental fees to €200 per month, the Phase 1 report of Shaping the Future the Early Years Action Plan states that Phase 2 will set out a roadmap to ensure that all publicly funded providers are supported to take part in Core Funding. As noted in the Phase 1 report, this will include measures to reduce the administrative burden for providers of participating in publicly funded schemes.
Core Funding is a supply-side grant to ELC and SAC providers towards their operating costs. It is designed to promote affordability for parents and sustainability for providers through increased funding to the sector, paid on a consistent and equitable basis.
A key condition of receiving the significant State funding that is available through the Scheme requires that a Partner Service adhere to the Core Funding fee management system, which includes a freeze on fees at 2021 levels and fee caps. This is to ensure that the State’s significant investment through the Scheme is not absorbed by unnecessary fee increases.
These fee management conditions of the Core Funding Scheme apply exclusively to Partner Services who have signed a Core Funding Agreement. These regulations are not applied to services which remain outside of the Core Funding scheme.
It is a matter for providers to decide whether they wish to sign up to Core Funding and benefit from 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 services that provide the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme and/or the National Childcare Scheme (NCS) are not required to take part in Core Funding, reducing the impact of the NCS as some families are not benefiting from the fee-control measures (fee-freeze and fee caps) or additional funding for quality provision that is provided by Core Funding. This will also be the case for the coming programme year 2026/2027.
The Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme and the National Childcare Scheme (NCS) are currently available to parents regardless of whether or not the early learning and childcare service their child is attending is participating in Core Funding.
ECCE is a universal programme which provides 2 years of free preschool to children in the eligible age range of 2 years and 8 months to 5 years and 6 months. Over 70% of families on low-income report that they would not be able to send their child to pre-school without this Programme.
The Department funds private early learning and care service providers to provide the ECCE programme at a standard rate of €69 per week per child attending the ECCE programme.
The NCS has undergone a number of enhancements in recent Budgets with the minimum NCS subsidy steadily rising from €0.50 in 2022 to €2.14 in September 2024 alongside extensions to eligibility. Additionally, since September 2024, the NCS has been open to Tusla-registered childminders who wish to participate in the scheme. Families availing of childminders who are participating in the NCS can claim a subsidy towards their costs. Further enhancements to the income-assessed subsidy were introduced in September 2026, raising the base threshold from €26,000 to €34,000 and the maximum threshold from €60,000 to €68,000, with additional increases to the multiple child discounts.
From September 2027, further enhancements to the NCS will be introduced. The minimum NCS subsidy will rise a further €0.36 to €2.50 for all children up to and including Senior Infants. Additionally, there will be an increase to the base threshold, rising from €34,000 to €38,500. There will also be further increases to the multiple child discounts.