Ms Moira O'Mara:

We are reviewing the CCS at the moment, and it is a scheme that was originally introduced in 2008. The child care landscape has changed over the years. This comes back to the point of whether we need additional community services around the country. We probably do need them in individual areas, but we have 950 in the CCS and we are trying to sustain our existing services at the moment, because of the major fall off in the use of child care by parents. The number of children and the cost to subsidise those children vary from year to year, depending on their circumstances. At the moment, the bulk of them are for parents who are in employment but who qualify because they have medical cards. That is at the cheaper rate than for the more disadvantaged parents.

We have looked at the question of a second preschool year for children with special needs, or even a second year for everybody. The overall policy objective would be to continue to have a mainstream approach and have all children availing of what is out there. When we get to the stage where the quality agenda is delivered, we can see about extending the preschool year. I was not aware of the statistic on the number of children currently availing of the year on a split basis.

I think it would have been higher in previous years. I will have a look at it and see why.