Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 28 January 2026
173. Deputy Jennifer Whitmore asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the number of early learning and childcare providers that have pulled out of the core funding scheme since its introduction in 2021 to-date in 2026, by county, by year, in tabular form; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [6733/26]
Amharc ar fhreagraIn the interest of clarity, transparency and consistent reporting, I have defined a service that left Core Funding as any service that has 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 There are a number of reasons that a service might fall into this definition, for example a service could have withdrawn from the scheme, been removed from the scheme for breach of rules, or experienced a delay in re-contracting following a change of circumstance application or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 to the scheme.
The table below provides a breakdown of the service that left Core Funding in each programme year by county division. Some services have left and rejoined multiple times across the years, and therefore the figures cannot be aggregated across programme years from the breakdown below.
|
COUNTY DIVISION |
Year 1 (2022/2023) |
Year 2 (2023/2024) |
Year 3 (2024/2025) |
Year 4 (2025/2026) |
|
Cork City |
2 |
4 |
5 |
0 |
|
County Carlow |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
County Cavan |
2 |
4 |
4 |
0 |
|
County Clare |
5 |
3 |
4 |
0 |
|
County Cork |
12 |
15 |
14 |
0 |
|
County Donegal |
12 |
9 |
17 |
0 |
|
County Galway |
24 |
30 |
16 |
1 |
|
County Kerry |
5 |
9 |
5 |
0 |
|
County Kildare |
11 |
11 |
7 |
0 |
|
County Kilkenny |
0 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
|
County Laois |
5 |
3 |
2 |
0 |
|
County Leitrim |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
County Limerick |
6 |
11 |
2 |
0 |
|
County Longford |
0 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
|
County Louth |
6 |
2 |
3 |
0 |
|
County Mayo |
7 |
12 |
0 |
0 |
|
County Meath |
4 |
13 |
16 |
0 |
|
County Monaghan |
0 |
4 |
1 |
0 |
|
County Offaly |
7 |
2 |
2 |
0 |
|
County Roscommon |
1 |
4 |
2 |
0 |
|
County Sligo |
0 |
5 |
5 |
0 |
|
County Tipperary |
12 |
14 |
3 |
0 |
|
County Waterford |
5 |
2 |
2 |
0 |
|
County Westmeath |
1 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
|
County Wexford |
4 |
11 |
6 |
2 |
|
County Wicklow |
2 |
12 |
3 |
0 |
|
Dublin City |
17 |
56 |
28 |
0 |
|
Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown |
8 |
10 |
8 |
0 |
|
Fingal |
7 |
29 |
9 |
0 |
|
South Dublin |
9 |
17 |
8 |
0 |
|
TOTAL |
175 |
296 |
174 |
3 |
It should be noted in the context of the services tabulated above, over 70% of services have returned to participate in Core Funding as of 3 November 2025.
Uptake of Core Funding remains strong. As of 26 January, 4,599 have signed up to the fourth year of Core Funding which represents 93% of all 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.
