Ms Teresa Heeney:

At the moment, the reality is that a lot of early years settings in schools - there is a growth in settings in schools - are vulnerable to the creation of additional needs classes in schools, because in the Department of Education and Youth's circular early years is not deemed to be education. Therefore, the school has no choice but to ask the early years settings to leave the premises and find a new space, which is often almost impossible, because they are in areas of growth and there are just no places. We could give the committee example after example of services that have been asked to leave school premises and cannot find alternative accommodation. The place is then lost to the community.

Until early years education is a right and available on a legislative basis, the Department of Education and Youth is entitled to say it cannot be on the school premises or another community premises. There are many commitments in the First 5 strategy - we always welcome it; it is a good policy document - but we need to decide to prioritise some of the more systemic or system-building commitments in it and invest in those.