Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 2 October 2024
201. Deputy Bernard J. Durkan asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the extent to which it may be possible to provide sufficient childcare places at an affordable rate to ensure that parents may plan for the future; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39445/24]
Amharc ar fhreagraImproving access to quality and affordable early learning and childcare is a key priority of Government.Data available to my Department demonstrates that, overall, early learning and childcare provision is expanding in terms of number of services opening, the number of places and hours of provision that services are offering, the numbers of staff employed and the numbers of parents supported through various schemes and initiatives.
The Early Years Sector Profile Survey shows that, between 2021/22 and 2022/23:
• the estimated number of enrolments in services rose by 8%, and
• the estimated number of staff in the early learning and childcare workforce rose by 8% from 34,357 to 37,060.
Data from Tusla on service closures and new service registrations shows a net increase of 129 in the overall number of services in 2023 and a five-year low in the number of net services closures – with preschool service closures falling by 18% in the first year of Core Funding.
Data from the National Childcare Scheme indicates that since 2022, there has been a 22 per cent increase in the number of providers offering the Scheme, a 100 per cent increase in the numbers of children benefitting from the Scheme and a 52 per cent increase in the number of sponsored children.
Core Funding application data shows that between Year 1 and Year 2 of the scheme, annual place hours increased by almost 8%.
However, I am aware that some parents are having difficulty in finding the type of affordable early learning and care provision that they would like for their children, particularly younger children. At the same time there is some evidence of vacancy in the system and some services are not operating at the full capacity that they could be.
My Department has in place a number of initiatives to support the sector to deliver supply to meet demand.
The Core Funding scheme supports providers with the costs of delivery and includes important conditionality in relation to fee management to improve affordability of provision, in tandem with the National Childcare Scheme and the Early Childhood Care and Education programme which assist parents with offsetting costs.
I have built on the allocation of the Core Funding scheme in each year since it began in 2022 and you will see that there is a further increase in the allocation in Budget 2025.
Separately, from this week I have put in place measures to allow a much larger cohort childminders to register with Tusla and for parents who use those regulated childminders to avail on NCS subsidies.
I am also supporting the expansion of capacity through capital funding. The Building Blocks Capital Schemes, which are operating over 2024 and 2025, are supporting services to increase capacity through two strands, the Expansion Scheme, now closed, and the Extension Scheme. The Extension Scheme will provide €25 million in capital funding next year to deliver thousands of new affordable early learning and childcare places. It will offer funding for large scale projects to enable existing community and private services to build new capacity onto their current premises by means of physical extension. It will also allow community services to apply to purchase or construct new premises. The capacity grant schemes include maximum fee thresholds as a condition of funding.
This programme of support for the provision of places builds on a substantial legacy of fostering the development of the sector and the establishment and expansion of services, most explicitly through previous capital programmes, but equally through the various current funding streams.
