The Government is to axe a €1000-per-year childcare payment to parents with children under the age of five. The payment, which parents were free to use at their discretion, will now be given instead to directly to childcare providers.
The Government is set to give these providers a capitation payment based on the number of children in their care, according to a report in The Irish Times.
Part of the plan will involve lowering the age for which children will be eligible for a year’s free pre-school place.
The development marks a change in the plan announced in last April’s budget. This would have made an estimated 70,000 children eligible to enter the scheme from January 2010 if they were born between March 1st, 2005, and June 1st, 2006.
In recent months more pre-school services than anticipated have applied to provide places under the free scheme, allowing the Government to widen the age criteria.
The effect will be that children born on or between February 2nd, 2005, and June 30th, 2006, will now be eligible to enter the scheme from January 2010. As a result, it is likely up to 8,000 or more children will be eligible to take part in the scheme.
A total of 4,000 pre-school services with up to 93,000 childcare places have applied to join the scheme. The office of the Minister for Children said it will continue to accept late applications for the scheme over the coming weeks.
In addition, the Government announced at the weekend that it will introduce a higher rate of capitation of €75 per week for sessional playschool services with highly qualified staff.
It said the new rate was being added to the scheme to support existing services which already operate with highly qualified staff, and to incentivise others to do the same.
Under the standard capitation fee, pre-school services will receive €64.50 per child, on the basis that pre-school leaders have an appropriate childcare qualification.
The office of the Minister for Children also announced that sessional childcare services participating in the scheme, which defray their costs wholly or mainly from State funding, will be exempt from commercial rates.
It said that while this will not affect full-day creches, whose main income will remain parental fees, it will reduce the running costs of many participating pre-school services.
