Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputies for their questions, which dovetail quite a bit.

Deputies Rabbitte and O'Sullivan referred to the expansion of the ECCE scheme. Children will have different start and end dates. The bottom line is that every child from the age of three years should have a place until he or she starts school should he or she wish to avail of it. It is anticipated that every child will get a minimum of 51 weeks and some will get as much as 88 weeks. On average, each child will get 61 weeks in total, depending on his or her date of birth and age at which he or she starts school. As Deputy O'Sullivan said, children will enter in September, January or April when they are three years of age.

Deputy Ó Laoghaire referred to regulations. In 2016, we will focus our efforts on supporting monetarily almost 5,000 service providers and work towards the sustainability of early years education in general. We are restoring the capitation rate for the ECCE scheme to the pre-2012 levels of €64.50 and €75 from September this year. We have lifted the cap on the number of community child care subvention places to allow community services to take as many CCS children for which they have capacity.

If they are able to take some children, that helps them in their efforts with their cost base and sustainability.

We have changed the rule on higher capitation in the ECCE scheme to allow services to claim per room. This was sought by the sector for some time. Child care committees Ireland is a structural support service we are enabling and supporting to examine services nationally that might be impacted by the new regulations and determine what can be done to support and prepare them for that. The 30 city and county child care committees will also work closely with services that are experiencing difficulties and help them back onto a substantial footing.

What the Department and I want most is that services are able to stay in business. They may need to make some changes in order to do that. We have implemented some changes in terms of increasing investment, capitation and regulation, such as staff ratios in rooms and capitation. At same time, we still need to be vigilant in order to ensure that we can maintain as many services as possible and enable new services to come on board.

On sustainability, the programme for Government is committed to an independent review of the cost of providing child care. I am sure Deputies are aware of that, and Deputy O'Sullivan said she wanted to work with me in that regard. We may be able to work together in the context of that review. We hope to be in a position to get that moving early in the new academic year. The review will greatly inform future policy developments. I am of course aware of the fact that advocates in national organisations are conducting reviews - I understand Early Years Ireland is one such body.

The learner fund is an issue close to my heart. In 2015, the focus was on level 5 to enable services to meet the regulatory requirements while 2016 funding focuses on level 6, something to which Deputy Ó Laoghaire referred. We expect that all of the funding will be utilised. I will campaign to make sure that it is taken up and available. If funding remains, we may allow it to be assigned to level 7 and level 8 to enable more services to avail of the higher capitation rate.

As we continue our exchanges in the committee, if members have suggestions, recommendations or want to table parliamentary questions on how we can fund this area I would welcome them. It is not just about investing money, although I would love to get more money for the learner fund. It is also about the accessibility of the learning, training, motivation, encouragement and support for people in the services.

AIM, the disability model, is a legacy for which I acknowledge Senator James Reilly and the ongoing hard work of the Department. On whether there will be indicators to determine if the scheme is working, as members probably know, the scheme was launched and is ready to go. We are looking for enrolment in September. The model has been greatly welcomed. We have a strong team in place in the Department, assisted by Pobal, the HSE and county and city child care committees. The implementation team and steering group will monitor it.

A member asked about targets. They will be monitored. It is expected that it will take probably take two to three years to fully implement them. One target involves higher education grants for the provision of 900 inclusion co-ordinators throughout different services.

The funding is expected to be fully spent and, again, because of the previous Government commitment, we must get a significant extra sum of €18 million for 2017 in order to continue the work that has begun.

I am a strong believer in the approach of the area-based childhood, ABC, programme. I am also aware that perhaps there are ways in which we can be more effective in an area-based approach. At the same time, we must examine the process and, as Deputy Ó Laoghaire has said, perhaps we have not found the best ways to effectively target every young person or child who is disadvantaged. That is absolutely a concern for me. As people know, the programme has been very positive for local communities, including Tallaght, Ballymun and Darndale, where the movement towards an area-based approach started. There were 13 sites in the past couple of years. As Deputies know, this is testing innovative and new approaches in disadvantaged areas to improve outcomes for children and families living in poverty. The results are being evaluated but they are coming on stream. We need to attend to the results. We have spent much money on the research and evaluation. We have some of the best researchers in the area in this country, but they were learning the best ways to evaluate this new testing and innovation. It will be a challenge for us as we move forward to see how, more specifically, we can place the investment in an area-based approach or a better targeting of children experiencing poverty. How can we better define the ways in which this will mitigate the impact on children living in poverty with this investment from the Department, while at the same time there are efforts from other Departments to increase the income of low-income or jobless households?

I am committed to ensuring the three original sites can continue their work up to July 2017, and I am working with the sites accordingly. For example, I am meeting elected representatives of Young Ballymun today and I am also examining where we will go with ABC after July 2017, as some Deputies have asked. It is important that we retain what we learned from the 13 sites and mainstream the most effective programmes. We are developing an approach but it has not yet been completed. It is very challenging, and one aspect will be that if we have been testing innovative methods in all the sites, how we can encourage the mainstreaming of those approaches? What does mainstreaming mean? We will continue to support it and perhaps the Departments dealing with education or health will take up some of the programmes in order to provide support in the different settings. It is one of the big challenges for us in terms of investment. I am an advocate for investing in programmes that work but may come from other budgets. The testing and innovation came from our budget.

The Department is also preparing proposals for a quality capacity-building initiative, which would help move us from site-specific initiatives to mainstreaming. As part of that, we will examine the 13 sites, and we are aware of concerns about developing area-based approaches in other settings. I visited one in County Kildare recently. I am sure there are other suitable places throughout the country. The question is how we can continue the area-based approach. We certainly need to ensure that the lessons we learn are mainstreamed. I have no doubt my Department will seek investment to do that and other Departments will also be involved. There is no question of simply stopping the ABC-related work. Perhaps it will be the biggest challenge for all of us to figure out how to best utilise the lessons we have learned and see what is the most effective investment for next year and subsequent years. I assure Deputies I am really aware of the challenge.