Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 7 October 2025
501. Deputy Emer Currie asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the number of pre-school places operating in the years 2020 to date in 2025, according to size such as <25, 25-49, 50-74, 75-99 and 100+. [52930/25]
View answerData on Early Learning and Care and School-Age Childcare service providers is captured through administrative data on the Early Years Platform (EYP). The below table provides a summary of the number of service providers by size based on the number of children registered in the service for any Department funded programme (ECCE, NCS and CCSP)*. The data are captured at 1 June for each of the years 2020-2025.
No. of Service Providers by size as of 1 June for each year.
|
- |
Year |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Size |
2020** |
2021 |
2022 |
2023 |
2024 |
2025 |
|
<25 |
Not Available |
1973 |
1894 |
1605 |
1511 |
1494 |
|
25-49 |
Not Available |
1357 |
1358 |
1345 |
1406 |
1388 |
|
50-74 |
Not Available |
570 |
602 |
722 |
738 |
862 |
|
75-99 |
Not Available |
272 |
304 |
425 |
501 |
511 |
|
100+ |
Not Available |
156 |
188 |
357 |
438 |
542 |
|
Total |
Not Available |
4328 |
4346 |
4454 |
4594 |
4897 |
* The Department funded programmes listed are the Early Childhood Care and Education Programme (ECCE), the National Childcare Scheme (NCS) and the Community Childcare Subvention Plus (CCSP)
**Data not available due to the impact of Covid-19
While the above administrative data is provided from the EYP, the Early Learning and Childcare data website provides an overview of publicly available data on the sector. The ‘Service providers overview’ section of the website provides information on the number of services registered for Department funded programmes, service location, organisation type which can be explored using the accompanying filter (including size).
