Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The target for 2018. The target for 2019 is 109,500 children. It was revised down and approximately 20,000 fewer children participated in the ECCE programme, according to figures supplied for Vote 40 for 2019. I would like to understand why that was the case. Is there a deficiency there in terms of parents making a choice? Is there a difficulty with parents finding a facility nearby into which they can put their child? Is that the problem or is there something else involved of which we are not aware? I ask the Minister to address that issue.