Minister Norma Foley has announced new caps on weekly childcare fees
A new weekly childcare cost cap is to be introduced, according to Norma Foley, Minister for Children, Disability and Equality.
According to the Irish Mirror, childcare costs for parents with children in “early learning and childcare providers” will be reduced.
Services availing of State funding through the Core Funding scheme will have fees capped at a specific amount from September.
Under these new programmes, parents or guardians would pay no more than €295 in childcare fees for a full-day place with 40 to 50 hours a week.
The Core Funding scheme is a grant to benefit early learning and childcare and school-age childcare providers.
It aims to help people with operating costs, designed to “improve affordability, quality, inclusion and sustainability.”
Fees will also be further reduced under the National Childcare Scheme and the two-year Early Childhood Care and Education preschool programme.
Therefore, if a parent pays €295 a week for a full day, they are entitled to a subsidy of €96.30.
This means their weekly fees total to €198.70.
Minister Foley explained the new fees to Newstalk.
“So the maximum amount that can be charged is €295, and when the subsidy that’s applied for parents, when that’s injected that’s €198.70 per week, so for those parents on those very high fees, that’s a saving of more than €5,460 a year or almost 5,500 a year.”
As per The Irish Mirror, Minister Foley stated:
“We’re absolutely clear that the Programme for Government has a very clear commitment around the €200 and that is our absolute goal.
“I’ve been very clear that we would do that over the lifetime of this government. It will be incremental.
“The steps we take today, we’re starting at the very top where there’s an extraordinarily high cost to parents, and we’re beginning to bring that down.”
According to Foley, the Government plan to implement this project over a five-year term.
State funding for childcare will also increase to €60 million in 2026.
