Childcare Services
Dail Éireann — 2026-09-17
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Edward Timmins (FG), Wicklow

I am happy to see this is progressing. Several providers involved in core funding since 2021 have contacted me and they have experienced a considerable increase in their overheads. I would also like to point out the fee payment thresholds table. Can I ask that County Wicklow be aligned with Dublin? At the moment it is in a mid-east bracket, and strangely for some of the mid-east brackets the upper limit on the threshold is lower than for some of the midlands. There seems to be an anomaly there. Another anomaly, which is slightly related, is that if a child moves from senior infants into first class they end up using a facility one hour less per day. That parent contacted me to say they are being charged €93 extra per month. That is because the childcare provider no longer receives the subsidy for that one hour per day. Yet the parent, who is now putting their child in for one hour less per day, ends up being charged the higher fee. These kinds of anomalies need to be looked at.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-09-17/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-09-17