Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 30 September 2025
780. Deputy John Lahart asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality to provide a regional breakdown of the childcare providers who have withdrawn from core funding, including both the number and proportion of providers in Dublin; and the steps she plans to take to encourage these providers to return, so that parents are not left paying the equivalent of a mortgage for their childcare. [51601/25]
View answerThe Department is aware that some service providers have regrettably chosen to withdraw from Core Funding.
In the interest of clarity, transparency and consistent reporting, I have defined a service that left Core Funding as any service that had a gap between contracts for Core Funding of 4 or more weeks. There are a number of reasons that a service might fall into this definition, for example a service could have withdrawn from the scheme, been removed from the scheme for breach of rules, or experienced a delay in re-contracting following a change of circumstance application or between programme years. In relation to withdrawals specifically, services may choose to leave the scheme mid-year for a multitude of reasons including being denied a fee increase, temporary closures, financial difficulties and administrative requirements. Many services have left and later re-joined the scheme. There may be a small number of services who left the scheme and subsequently closed at a later date and are not captured in the figures below.
As of 5 August 2025, there were 1,165 services in Dublin listed as being open on the Early Years Platform, of which 66 (6%) had left Core Funding at one point over the past 3 years and continued to operate outside of this scheme on this date. A further 92 services (8%) had left Core Funding at one point over the past 3 years but later rejoined and were signed up to the third year of the scheme on this date. The overwhelming majority of services, 904 (or 78%), had continued to participate in Core Funding from the date on which they first signed up for the scheme. I am also aware that between 5 and 31 August 2025, one additional services located in Dun Laoghaire Rathdown reached the end of their notice period and withdrew from Core Funding.
The fourth year of Core Funding began on 1 September 2025 and as of 26 September, 4,379 services have signed up to the fourth year of Core Funding. This represents an increase of 5 per cent on this point in time last year. Every year there are a number of services who sign up to Core Funding in the weeks following the commencement of the programme year. Officials in the Department will be working to update these figures, reflecting an accurate assessment regarding participation in the fourth year of the scheme.
A breakdown, by Local Authority Area in Dublin, is below in tabular format.
|
County Division |
Continued participation |
Left but returned in Year 3 |
Left and did not return in Year 3 |
Never participated |
|
Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown |
148 |
8 |
13 |
27 |
|
South Dublin |
186 |
18 |
10 |
18 |
|
Dublin City |
327 |
47 |
27 |
28 |
|
Fingal |
243 |
19 |
16 |
30 |
Core Funding has been designed with maximum participation of providers in mind as reflected in the year-on-year growth of investment in the Scheme (rising from €259 million in year 1 to over €390 million in year 4). This represents an increase of over 50% in Core Funding in three years.
The 2025/2026 allocation represents an increase of over €60 million (over 18%) on the previous programme year, which will facilitate:
• Support for providers in meeting the costs of increases in minimum pay rates as a result of newly negotiated Employment Regulation Orders by the independent Joint Labour Committee;
• Increased funding for early learning and care capacity offered to ensure Partner Services can keep pace with rising costs without needing to increase fees charged to parents;
• An increase to the minimum amount of funding a centre-based service will receive, increasing to €14,400 per year from the current level of €14,000;
• A reduction in the maximum allocation for a service’s capacity to €450,000 to best spread a limited budget across the entire sector; and
• Funding to support capacity growth of 3.5% across the sector.
In addition to this increased allocation, being in Core Funding unlocks additional supports for services to access, including:
• access to wider financial supports where a service is experiencing financial difficulty or has concerns about their viability;
• access to enhanced support for services caring for concentrated numbers of children facing disadvantage through Equal Start; and
• opportunities to apply for capital grants through the Department.
Moreover, the annual changes to the allocation model and in the conditions attached to the funding has ensured the Scheme remains responsive, balancing the needs of providers while seeking also to meet a range of other objectives. Among these objectives is ensuring taxpayers’ money is being used in a way that sustains services while not unreasonably increasing their private profit.
Participation in Core Funding is optional, but it remains open to all Tulsa registered providers, subject to their agreement to the terms and conditions of the Core Funding Agreement. 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.
Core Funding remains open, and these withdrawn services may reapply during the year and as can be seen above more services have returned in the Dublin areas than have not returned.
The Department is always exploring the potential for further changes to enhance Core Funding. Any changes for Year 5 – starting in September 2026 – would be based on the operation of year 4 of the Scheme starting this month as well as stakeholder input. The Department will continue to engage with the sector, and continue to develop the scheme so that it can continue to see the high uptake levels it has seen this year, and indeed since it was launched in 2022.
