Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 18 November 2025
942. Deputy John Brady asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the number of childcare providers that have withdrawn from core funding for each year between 2022-2025, by county, in tabular form; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [63786/25]
Amharc ar fhreagraAs Core Funding is an optional scheme, services have the autonomy and business freedom to withdraw from Core Funding, even though this will result in the loss of the significant financial support it offers them and the substantial benefits and certainty it brings to the families availing of these services.
An analysis of the services that left Core Funding in previous programme years was conducted in August of this year (analyses of this nature are only feasible on a programme year basis, as annual Core Funding contracts run from September to August).
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 There are a number of reasons that a service might fall into this definition, for example a service could have withdrawn from the scheme, been removed from the scheme for breach of rules, or experienced a delay in re-contracting following a change of circumstance application or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.
The tables below provide a breakdown of the services that left Core Funding in each programme year by county division. Some services may have left and rejoined multiple times across the three years, and therefore the figures cannot be summed across programme years from the breakdown below.
|
County division |
Year 1 Withdrawals (2022/2023) |
Year 2 Withdrawals (2023/2024) |
Year 3 Withdrawals (2024/2025) |
|
County Cork |
13 |
14 |
1 |
|
County Clare |
5 |
4 |
1 |
|
County Cavan |
3 |
3 |
0 |
|
County Carlow |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
Cork City |
2 |
4 |
1 |
|
County Donegal |
13 |
9 |
0 |
|
Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown |
9 |
12 |
1 |
|
South Dublin |
10 |
19 |
1 |
|
Dublin City |
15 |
56 |
6 |
|
Fingal |
8 |
29 |
1 |
|
County Galway |
25 |
32 |
0 |
|
County Kildare |
11 |
13 |
0 |
|
County Kilkenny |
1 |
2 |
0 |
|
County Kerry |
4 |
8 |
0 |
|
County Longford |
2 |
0 |
0 |
|
County Louth |
5 |
2 |
0 |
|
County Limerick |
5 |
11 |
3 |
|
County Leitrim |
2 |
0 |
0 |
|
County Laois |
4 |
6 |
0 |
|
County Meath |
4 |
13 |
0 |
|
County Monaghan |
0 |
4 |
1 |
|
County Mayo |
8 |
12 |
0 |
|
County Offaly |
7 |
2 |
0 |
|
County Roscommon |
1 |
5 |
0 |
|
County Sligo |
0 |
5 |
0 |
|
County Tipperary |
11 |
14 |
1 |
|
County Waterford |
6 |
2 |
0 |
|
County Westmeath |
1 |
1 |
1 |
|
County Wicklow |
4 |
10 |
0 |
|
County Wexford |
4 |
11 |
1 |
|
Total |
183 |
303 |
19 |
It should be noted that of the 507 services tabulated above, some 356 services were contracted to Core Funding as of August 5, 2025 - meaning over 70% of services who withdrew, subsequently returned to Core Funding.
The fourth year of Core Funding began on 1 September 2025. As of 14 November, 4,545 services have signed up to the fourth year of Core Funding. This represents 92% of all eligible services and this number continues to grow.
As applications continue to be submitted, it is not yet possible to make an accurate assessment regarding whether further services have made the decision to no longer participate in Core Funding in the fourth programme year, which started on 1 September 2025.
