Gino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance)
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60. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth if he will abolish childcare fees in 2024; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26084/24]

Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party)
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Various schemes under the funding model for early learning and childcare work to ensure children can access early learning and childcare at no or at significantly reduced out of pocket costs to families.

The Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme, is available free of charge to all children for up to two years before starting primary school. 96% of children take part.

The National Childcare Scheme (NCS) complements this programme, providing subsidies to reduce costs to parents for children to participate in early learning and childcare. The Scheme combines universal and income-assessed subsidies.

For some families, the NCS provides free access to early learning and childcare. In particular, the Scheme includes arrangements for specified target groups to receive free access, where referred by a sponsor body.

A review of the Scheme, published in 2021, found that over half of families in disadvantaged areas receiving support under the Scheme had over 50% of their costs covered.

A study of childcare costs by the OECD, published in 2022, covering the same period of the review found that the reforms of childcare support in Ireland provided significantly higher benefits to low-income families, driving the net childcare costs for low-income lone parents close to zero.

Following on from these reports, a number of enhancements were made to this Scheme:

Removing of the practice of deducting hours spent in pre-school or school from the entitlement to NCS subsidised hours.

Extending the NCS universal subsidy to all children under 15.

Increasing the minimum hourly subsidy available under the NCS from 50 cent per to €1.40.

This rate will rise further to €2.14 per hour in September 2024 alongside increases in the sponsor rates from children over 1.

The fee freeze in place among 94% of all services – supported through Core Funding – ensures parents are benefitting from these changes.

In Q3 of 2024, my Department will begin an evaluation of the NCS which will identify further improvements that can be made to the Scheme.