Childcare Services
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-19
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Christopher O'Sullivan (FF), Cork South-West

I was going to repeat the point about engagement with the city and county childcare committees to show facilities the merits of being in the scheme, but obviously the people the Deputy is talking about are, first of all, educators. This is 100% why they are in this area. They have a passion for it and they want to educate young kids. Second, they are also businesspeople. Obviously, they have gone through this, have gone up and down and in and out and decided - probably a very tough decision to make - that this was not for them.
Clearly, however, considering the 93% uptake and the year-on-year increase, the scheme has been a success. As I said to the Deputy, while there were similar issues in my area and providers were dropping out of the scheme, that is no longer the case. It is an interesting question about urban areas that the Deputy is talking about. Perhaps this is a question on which we could go back to the Minister, Deputy Foley, in respect of where the 7% of facilities are that we are missing out on. That is a very valid question to ask.
I totally agree with the Deputy that we need to plough on and continue this momentum in reducing childcare fees. It is a commitment we gave and we need to continue with this work. I thank the Deputy again for raising this issue on behalf of his constituents.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-05-19/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:46+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-19