Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 1 April 2025
684. Deputy Claire Kerrane asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the action that has been undertaken in furtherance of the stated commitment in the Programme for Government to 'ensure childcare providers' gees are open, transparent, and equitable and readily available to parents'; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [15790/25]
View answerThe new Programme for Government, which was published on 15 January 2025, commits to review and increase Core Funding, ensure that providers’ fees are open, transparent and equitable and readily available to parents, and to maintaining the fee cap.
Fee management under Core Funding has been an incremental and deliberate process to date. Since the launch of the scheme in September 2022, Partner Services have agreed to an effective fee freeze whereby they will not increase fees above those charged on 30 September 2021.
In the context of the substantial level of investment in the sector through Core Funding, immediate enforcement of a freeze on fees at this early stage was critical to support value for money, good corporate governance across the scheme and to meet the Department’s overarching objective of increasing affordability to parents.
Alongside the introduction of this fee freeze, the Department has taken steps to prepare the sector for the next phase of fee management.
The first step was the introduction of the Parent Statement which contained a single fee table, intended to start the process of simplification of fee options to support understanding for parents. The data fields provide start and finish times, age ranges, hours per day, days per week, this supports ease of comparison for parents and data analysis for the Department.
The second step was moving the Parent Statement and Fee Table online. There is now a Universal Fee table which is applicable to all schemes and Parent Statements automatically generated using the information provided in the universal fee table. Validations have been included for the 2024/2025 programme year to reduce the potential for user errors, and in preparation for future years and to support the implementation of a common fee structure.
The third step was the introduction of a common fee structure, controlled Fee Increases and maximum Fee Caps from September 2024.
In Partnership for the Public Good, the Expert Group supported movement towards a common fee structure for all Partner Services and the fee table contained within the Parent Statement is the key infrastructure on which this can be built. Targeted fee caps and controlled fee increases, working in association with a fee freeze, represent a further development of the fee management system under Core Funding and mark the next step toward achieving the medium- and long-term goals outlined in the Expert Group’s report.
While this fee freeze has remained in place for the majority of services for year 3 of Core Funding, the Department introduced:
• a new Fee Increase Assessment and Approval Process whereby a Partner Service meeting certain criteria could apply to increase their fees up to an approved level, and
• a cap on fees for services joining Core Funding for the first time this year
A fee cap will apply to all Partner Services from September 2025.
Parents/guardians and their children can only avail of the benefits and protections that Core Funding creates, such as fee management, if their service has chosen to participate in the scheme as a Partner Service and Core Funding is designed to ensure maximum participation by providers.
However, historical fees lists for programme years 22/23 and current year are available on the Childcare Search section of the NCS Website for every early learning and childcare service. The fees list tables include which schemes the service has contracted to and whether the service is a Partner service under Core Funding or not. They also include details of session costs, full or part time costs where applicable and any fee extras such as after-school clubs, deposits and any relevant discounts for multiple children dependent on the service offerings. The fees lists are downloadable to pdf format.
Parents can also contact the Parent Support Centre by phone by completing a contact form on the website to ask about year-on-year comparison of fees lists for their individual service. Local city or County Childcare Committee can also provide information and support regarding fees – the CCCs have access to all fees lists for their region.
