Parents ‘won’t be hit’ if hikes in childcare fees approved
More than 260 providers apply for increases under funding scheme
More than 260 childcare providers have applied to the Government to increase their fees, but official sources said parents will not be hit in the pocket.
Figures supplied by the Department of Children to the Irish Independent show 269 out of around 4,500 providers have asked for an assessment to see if they are eligible to charge more if they are below the average for their county.
Others may follow, given the closing date for the Fee Increase Assessment and Approval Process is November 29.
Childcare providers must freeze their fees if they sign up to the Government’s Core Funding scheme in exchange for state support. But some have begun pulling out of the system that they say has not taken account of high inflation, with parents hit with fee increases as a result.
The department is rolling out a new process to allow services that are still in the Core Funding system whose fees are below county average rates to seek a special assessment to increase them.
This means they will be able to raise their fees to an approved new level.
The providers must effectively ‘open their books’ to the department, by showing their income and expenditure for last year, and their current fees, following which the department will decide whether to sanction an increase.
A department spokesperson said the maximum increase allowed would be capped at 74c an hour, up to a maximum of €33.30 a week per child.
Government sources said parents whose childcare provider increases fees would not have to pay more. They said the increase would be offset by a planned hike in a universal childcare subsidy that benefits parents.
“No parent will pay extra for early learning and childcare in any service which gets approval for a fee increase, thanks to ongoing National Childcare Scheme [NCS] subsidies,” a department spokesperson said.
They said services that applied for an increase must provide parents with the department’s decision letter within 20 working days. A childcare service would be under no obligation to increase fees to this maximum value.
Providers whose applications for a fee increase are unsuccessful must inform parents there will be no increase.
The spokesperson said most services that opted in to the fee freeze had “sustainability issues”.
“In response, for this programme year 2024 to 2025, the department introduced a new process whereby services whose fees are below their county average can apply for an assessment to increase their fees to an approved level, though in no case to a level that would offset the full NCS subsidy,” they said.
They said up to now services in Core Funding had not been allowed to raise fees above what was charged to parents on September 30, 2021, or the date they joined after that. There would be a 15pc increase in Core Funding this year, the spokesperson said.
Government sources said the department had to address the fact that some providers were charging fees a “good bit” below the county average and needed an opportunity to bring them up.