For the second-year running, Fianna Fáil has reduced the cost of childcare in a meaningful way, easing the pressure on parents, and giving them the opportunity to return to work. It also takes further steps to permanently reduce the contribution families pay towards third level education.
This means that a married couple with one child in full-time childcare, both working and with a combined net income of €95,000 can expect to see a gain of over €3,500 next year, a 3.7% increase because of the decisions we are making today.
Key Measures
The increased universal subsidies and cuts to the max fees will reduce costs for families:
The National Childcare Scheme (NCS) subsidy will increase from €2.14 to €2.50 per hour for children in early years, junior infants and senior infants from September 2027. This will benefit approximately 107,000 children.
The maximum fee cap that can be charged by providers in Core Funding will be reduced from €280 per week to €250 per week for a child in a full time, five-day a week place, with changes to be made proportionally to each fee band.
For example, a family who are availing of a full-time place for their one-year-old child, five days a week, for 45 hours, their costs are currently capped at €735 per month taking universal subsidies into account. Under Budget 2027, their bill will reduce to no more than €550 a month from next September. This means that the family will make a saving of over €2,000 over the early learning calendar.
The lower income thresholds for families for the NCS will be raised from €34,000 to €38,500 as an anti-child poverty measure, allowing more families to benefit from the maximum subsidies.
The Access and Inclusion Model supports for children with disabilities in the Early Childhood Education and Care (ECCE) programme will be extended to children under three years of age from September 2027.
Core Funding for over 4,600 providers of early learning and care will increase by over 36% or €175m, to €658 million for the next Programme year.
There will be additional funding of over €50 million ringfenced to support new negotiations by the independent Early Years Services Joint Labour Committee, for another employment regulation order for early years educators.
The number of children on the NCS will increase from 277,000 to 293,000 in the next programme year, an extra 16,000.
