22/02/2016

Additional €16m Made Available For Childcare Subsidises

An additional €16 million has been made available from Budget 2016 for the Community Childcare Subvention (CCS) scheme, the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Dr James Reilly.

The scheme subsidises childcare for certain low income parents and will be made more accessible by being available through Private Childcare Service Providers. The extension to the scheme will apply from Monday 07 March 2016 and is expected to fund around 8,000 additional childcare places.

In July 2015, Minister Reilly published a report which found that many parents eligible for this subvention, which can amount to as much as €95 per week per child, could not access it. This was because, until now, the scheme could only be provided through Community Childcare / Not for Profit services, which did not serve every area of the country. The Report recommended that the CCS should be made available to private childcare providers as well as community / not for profit services to improve accessibility and options for parents and children.

The extra 8,000 places will be in addition to the funding that the Minister provided in late 2015 which enabled community services to increase their existing numbers of children under the CCS scheme. 

Minister Reilly said: "I am delighted to be able to extend the provision of CCS funding to private childcare providers, allowing many previously excluded, parents and children to access this funding. The extra resources will make a significant difference to eligible parents on low incomes."

(MH/LM)

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