Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 20 January 2026
837. Deputy Robert O'Donoghue asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality to provide a list of early years and school age childcare services that have withdrawn from the core funding scheme; the number and percentage of services that have signed up to the scheme to date; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [3721/26]
View answerThe Department does not provide the names of services that have left the scheme. However, the Department has a list of all Core Funding Partner Services which is updated regularly on the Departments website under [How to Find a Partner Service].
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 For example, a service could have withdrawn from the scheme, been removed from the scheme for breach of rules, or experienced a delay in re-contracting following a change of circumstance application or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. 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 3 November 2025, there were 5,035 services listed as being open on the Early Years Platform, of which 177 (4%) had left Core Funding at one point over the lifetime of the scheme to this date and continue to operate outside of this scheme. A further 415 services (8%) had left Core Funding at one point over the lifetime of the scheme to this date but later rejoined and were signed up to the fourth year of the scheme on this date. The overwhelming majority of services, 4,157 or 83%, have continued to participate in Core Funding from the date on which they first signed up for the scheme.
It should be noted that of the 592 services that have left the scheme at one point, some 415 services were contracted to Core Funding as of 3 November 2025 - meaning over 70% of services who left the scheme at one point have now returned to Core Funding.
A breakdown of the engagement with Core Funding is below in tabular format.
|
Engagement type |
Number of active services |
|
Continued Participation |
4,157 |
|
Left and since returned |
415 |
|
Left and remained out |
177 |
|
Did not participate |
286 |
|
TOTAL |
5,035 |
Uptake of Core Funding remains strong. The fourth year of Core Funding began on 1 September 2025 and as of 12 January 2026 there were 4,593 services signed up to Year 4 of Core Funding, which represents 93% uptake by eligible services. This is the highest number of Partner Services in Core Funding at any point since the scheme was launched in 2022 and the number continues to grow.
I am encouraged by this rate of participation: it shows that Core Funding is working as intended, and the vast majority of families will continue to benefit from the scheme’s fee management conditions.
