Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The provision of an additional €85 million is extremely welcome. I think the Minister will get the support of everybody on the committee to continue to look for more funding for early childhood care and education because it is an area in respect of which Ireland has under-invested historically. I think the committee would be interested in doing work on how we might support the Minister in obtaining extra funding for this area. I know we are dealing with the Revised Estimate for 2016 but I think we all have a view on the ECCE programme and are wondering what will happen after the second ECCE year.

I very much welcome the fact that children with disabilities are now included under the programme. Will the Minister expand on how their involvement is supported? Are there targets and performance measures or other methods to assess the way providers respond to children with disabilities?

On the ABC programme, the documentation we received states that one of the outputs is to ensure that the emerging learning from the ABC programme will be captured and that work towards mainstreaming it into established services will be engaged in. I know there is a plan to mainstream it and that part of the reason for so doing relates to the way in which the programme is currently funded. Will the Minister provide more information on how mainstreaming will work?

Will it involve one model? Will it be in the same areas or is it likely to spread to other areas? I am not sure whether the Minister has fully developed plans yet. I would appreciate any information she could give us.