Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 20 November 2025
554. Deputy Michael Murphy asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality if her Department has carried out any impact assessment of the core funding model since its introduction; if her Department plans to review or revise the model in view of recent provider withdrawals and operational challenges; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [65058/25]
View answerThe introduction of Core Funding in 2022 brought a significant increase in investment for the sector, with €259m of funding paid directly to services in year 1 of the scheme, of which €210.8m was entirely new funding.
An evaluation of the first year of Core Funding and the development of an evaluation framework for Core Funding is currently underway. This project will examine the early implementation of Core Funding and make recommendations for future evaluations of the grant. Findings from the project are expected in Quarter 4 2025.
This project is being undertaken by Irish Government Economic and Evaluation Service or IGEES policy analysts working in the Research and Evaluation Unit of my Department.
IGEES is an integrated cross-government service established in 2012 with the objective of enhancing the role of economics and value for money analysis in public policy making. It is part of the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform.
In addition to this formal evaluation, since the Scheme was introduced, its effectiveness has been subject to ongoing review and the scheme itself has evolved year on year.
Core funding increased by 11% to reach €287m for the second year, and by a further 15% to €331m for the current and third year of the scheme. The allocation of this additional funding in year 2 and 3 of was informed by the data from previous years, feedback from stakeholders as well as an independent financial review of sessional services by Frontier Economics.
Moreover, changes to fee management were introduced in year 3, enabling low fee services to apply for a fee increase.
The full year allocation for year 4 of Core Funding is over €390 million. This includes funding specifically ringfenced to support employers to meet the costs of increases to the minimum rates of pay in the sector that came into effect on 13 October. The use of this increased funding was informed by data from previous years as well as stakeholder feedback.
The total allocation for Core Funding in 2026/2027 programme year will increase to €436.94 million, an additional €44 million on the current full year allocation. Full details of Core Funding 2026/2027 will be made available to the sector in 2026 and will be informed by emerging insights from the ongoing operation and evaluation of the scheme.
As of 18 November, 93% of eligible providers have signed up to the fourth year of Core Funding, which equates to over 4,500 services and an increase of over 5% since this time last year. Core Funding is currently experiencing the highest total number of participating services since the introduction of the Scheme.
The Department has also made changes to improve the sustainability of providers through, for examples, targeted measures for small and sessional services, a fee increase assessment and approval process for services with fees frozen at unsustainably low rates. There are also wider financial supports from the Department for services experiencing financial difficulty.
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, administrative requirements and personal reasons such as retirement. Many services have left and later re-joined the scheme.
While the Department cannot mandate providers to participate in the Scheme, every effort has been made to carefully design Core Funding to meet the policy objectives including to achieve high levels of participation by providers.
