Thomas Gould
Ceist:846. Deputy Thomas Gould asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the number of childcare facilities that have removed themselves from the NCS scheme in each of the past five years. [72155/25]
Amharc ar fhreagraTuesday, 16 December 2025
Ceisteanna (846)
Freagraí scríofa
The National Childcare Scheme (NCS) provides financial support to help parents reduce the cost of early learning and childcare.
Subsidies are available for children aged between 24 weeks and 15 years of age. The minimum rate available is €2.14 per hour, which is available for up to 45 weekly hours and is paid directly to the childcare provider.
The number of children using the Scheme has grown by over 70% since 2022 due to enhancements further improving the affordability of childcare for parents. These include the extension of the upper age eligibility for the Universal award from 3 years of age to 15 years of age in August 2022. There have also been two increases to the minimum hourly subsidy rate bringing it up to the current rate of €2.14. Since September 2024, all childminders are able to register for the NCS making the scheme more accessible to more parents.
This growth was further supported by Core Funding, which aims to ensure affordability for parents through fee management conditions and ensuring that providers offer NCS and ECCE to all eligible children.
For your information, the table below details the number of services which have left the NCS over the past five years.
|
|
|
Of which: |
Of which: |
|
Programme call |
Number of services who had a contract for the specified programme year but not for the next programme year (i.e. left NCS for at least one programme year) and are still open |
The number of services who re-contracted to NCS after a gap of at least one programme year and are still open |
The number of services that never re-contracted to NCS but are still open. |
|
NCS 2020 |
137 |
87 |
50 |
|
NCS 2021 |
63 |
34 |
29 |
|
NCS 2022 |
47 |
20 |
27 |
|
NCS 2023 |
79 |
15 |
64 |
|
NCS 2024 |
69 |
NA |
NA
|