I disagree with the Deputy slightly on targeting, particularly regarding the removal of wrap-around hours. That certainly targets the most vulnerable children, namely, those whose parents who are not in work or study. The change was a direct response to advocacy I received from a range of representative groups across the early learning and childcare sector, including the community sector and especially communities from which there was specific advocacy in this regard. This was a change they welcomed. Regarding the …

I firmly believe that the level of pay for early years educators and school-age childcare practitioners should reflect the value of their work for children, families, society and the wider economy. I know everyone across this House is united in the belief that the level of pay needs to improve. The State is not the employer of childcare staff, and my Department does not set their wage levels or working conditions. However, I am doing all in my power to address the issue of pay. In particular, I began a process in D…

I absolutely agree with the Deputy that we need to cut costs for parents. I have set out clearly the mechanism by which we will do so and also deliver better pay for childcare professionals. I have not had the opportunity to study the new proposals from his party and I look forward to doing so. I recall that in respect of last year's budget, it proposed an investment of significantly less than what the Government put into the sector. I look forward to seeing it make proposals for additional funding. We are all in a…

The contract for core funding was issued in the past two weeks. Childcare providers will be filling out and returning their applications. We do not know at this point what the numbers are. We know 96% of providers have signed up to the transition scheme, which includes the agreement to limit fee increases. We know 89% of providers have signed up to the sector profile, which is the first step towards signing up to core funding. There is significant buy-in across the sector. We see that as really valuable. Through co…

Ensuring the availability and affordability of early learning and childcare provision for parents is a key priority of the Government. The transition fund referred to in the question is a temporary, one-off scheme to support providers between the end of the employment wage subsidy scheme, EWSS, in April and the introduction of a new core funding scheme in September. The primary objective of the transition fund is to ensure that the fees charged to parents do not increase. Participation in the transition fund is opt…

We are providing significant new core funding. The allocation for this first year is €221 million. We have also made it clear that we are going to be putting additional money into the NCS. Therefore, we are making these schemes as attractive as possible to support providers as far as possible. As I said already in my answers, one of three challenges we face is the sustainability of providers. We cannot force providers into schemes. That has always been something we have been clear about. We are, however, making the…

One of the key reasons we have linked the provision of core funding to services and the NCS is to ensure that we can get that agreement for the additional money being invested to go to pay staff. Without some element of conditionality regarding the money we are giving, we would not be able to guarantee that those enhanced levels of pay, which are being negotiated now, would actually be delivered to staff. Therefore, our mechanism in delivering on that is to link the NCS and core funding. To do otherwise would be to…

The availability of high-quality early learning and childcare that is affordable and accessible is a key Government priority. To ensure that the supply of early learning and childcare places meets demand, my Department has, since 2015, funded the creation of more than 27,000 new places, as well as the upgrading of services through an annual capital programme. With the onset of Covid-19 in 2020, the annual capital programme prioritised funding for early learning and childcare providers to enable them to reopen safel…

We have had an extensive and valuable discussion in the House today on the issue of childcare. It is worth mentioning childminders in recognition that centre-based childcare is not the only method of childcare provision. Thousands of families across the country rely on childminders. We brought in the childminding action plan to provide an appropriate degree of regulation of that sector, recognising the important work being done, and to allow childminders use of the NCS as well. Thus, parents using a childminder wou…

The Deputy has raised the issue of ECCE-only service providers with me on a number of occasions. We continue to examine the concerns raised by some of these service providers. I made the point before that only a small number, amounting to 1%, will see no change in their funding allocation. The vast majority of ECCE service providers will see additional money coming into them as a result of core funding. I reiterate that we are dealing with year 1 of core funding now. The money we invest in education and childcare w…

Since its publication last November, there has been strong progress in implementing many of the key commitments in the action plan. Of the 22 actions, eight have already been completed while 12 are in progress. Key achievements include the enactment of the Birth Information and Tracing Act 2022, to conclusively address the wrongful denial of people's identity rights; the launch of a comprehensive public information campaign and the establishment of a new contact preference register under the Act, paving the way for…

I am acutely aware of the importance of getting both the financial payments and enhanced medical cards to the people who need them as a matter of urgency. That is why the drafting of this detailed Bill was done at pace. The pre-legislative scrutiny process is almost over. I will seek to have the Bill passed early in the autumn term. It has always been my hope that the first payments will begin to be drawn down before the end of this year or very early next year. That is the timeframe we are working towards. As the …

There is a breakdown of age which I do not have to hand but I will communicate it to the Deputy. It spans a wide range. There are people at the edge of the range who are elderly, as the Deputy mentioned. We recognise that many of those eligible were children when they were formerly resident. There are also a number of people who are middle aged. In terms of the process, we are working in advance of the passage of the Bill to create an executive office within my Department that will oversee the entire process. We ar…

In April a nationwide survey of capacity in early learning and childcare services was undertaken by city and county childcare committees. That survey was followed in May by the annual early years sector profile survey that is undertaken by Pobal. Approximately 89% of providers have already participated. Preliminary analysis of those data reveal vacancy rates for children under one and children aged one to two of 14% and 6%, respectively. Vacancy rates for children under one and children aged one to two in Dublin ar…

The quickest response is through core funding, which, per child, provides three times the amount of funding for services that have rooms for children under the age of one as opposed to, say, a room for school-aged childcare. We recognise that it is more expensive to provide a baby room or a toddler room, so core funding will provide additional support for services to open and to sustain such rooms. We are already seeing some services change their registration with Tusla and broadening their offering, and that is re…

We have not yet drafted the complete terms and conditions in respect of the additional capacity. We are working on that. We will draw from a range of sources, recognising that different providers engage with different surveys in different ways. I absolutely recognise that there are parts of the city where there are real capacity constraints; they are in my constituency as well. I see the capital programme as one way in which the Government can respond in a more targeted way than changes to the planning regulations.…

On 10 September 2015, as part of Ireland's response to the migration crisis in central and southern Europe, the Government established the Irish refugee protection programme, IRPP. The IRPP has seen the arrival of approximately 4,100 refugees under various resettlement strands, the largest of which is the programme led by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR. There have been significant challenges in meeting these targets over the course of 2020 and 2021, with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic…

I thank the Deputy for his response. I too had the opportunity to travel to that region in November of last year. I visited Jordan and the Al Za'atari refugee camp and I was very impressed by the generosity of the Jordanian Government. It is a country of 10 million people and 2 million people of that population, or 20%, are refugees. They are provided with the same Covid-19 vaccinations and the same level of supports as are the rest of the population. It puts a great strain on the resources of a country that is not…

I thank the Deputy for the invitation and I will certainly do my best to take it up. The Deputy has raised the issues in respect of ensuring that where we welcome Ukrainians, or indeed people from any crisis, there is capacity here. Our response to Ukraine has been an emergency one and is a response to a war that none of us anticipated. My Department has not always got it right in the co-ordination area but we have done our best and we will continue to do so and this is recognised by the Ukrainian authorities. It i…

I thank the Deputy for the question and I am very excited that we are bringing forward a new, third, cohort of the Growing Up in Ireland, GUI, survey. GUI represents a significant and valuable State investment in high quality, policy-relevant data on the lives of children, young people and their families. To date, GUI has generated more than 90 reports and a multitude of findings. These have provided important evidence for policy and have been used extensively across Government and the wider public sector. GUI data…