Peter Kelly (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)

County Longford Childcare Committee was established in 2001 as part of the national child care strategy of 2000. It is the first point of contact for the public when applying for grant assistance under the national child care investment programme. It offers a wide variety of services locally, which include advice on setting up a child care business, child care information sessions, training courses for those considering a career in child care, advice and support on applying for child care funding, support to parent and toddler groups and support to childminders. They also offer services to parents, such as providing information on local child care facilities and information on parent networks.

In total, there are 33 child care facilities in County Longford, both public and private. Each child care facility is a great credit to the people who run these facilities. They are state-of-the-art, world class facilities, well run by professional, loving and caring staff. Each centre is worth a visit to see the excellent facilities and the great staff at work.

This initiative is the first time in the history of the State that we are introducing preschool care in education. Service providers will be given a capitation fee to cover the cost of approximately €2,400 per year and they can run twice daily sessions if they so wish. All parents whose children qualify will be notified shortly. Applications can be made to the Longford County Childcare Committee and this committee will be the link with the local providers. Terms and conditions to service providers will be sent out early in June. The scheme begins in January 2010. Locally, service providers have said they will be able to operate within the fee structure. Access to a preschool year is a great idea and will be of immense benefit to the children in later life, as well as being a huge benefit to children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

I want to take the opportunity to congratulate the Minster of State, Deputy Barry Andrews, a concerned Minister who is on top of his brief. I thank him for his recent visit to Longford when he came to see first-hand the child care facilities. It was a very pleasant and happy day, with children, parents and politicians all mixing together and enjoying the good weather and good facilities in Longford.

I congratulate the Minister of State on introducing the free preschool year in early childhood care and education which will be under the auspices of his Department and for which he will be responsible. This is a landmark development in the provision of early childhood care and education services for young children in Ireland. The new scheme will be implemented by the office of the Minister of State and will be open to all private and voluntary preschool services which meet the requirements of the scheme. As I said, the grant is approximately €2,400 per annum and is a payment made to participating services for each child enrolled. The full year cost of the scheme is expected to be approximately €170 million.

Parents who avail of the scheme in a playschool will be entitled to a free preschool provision of five weekly sessions of three hours per day for 38 weeks per year, which amounts to a weekly capitation grant of €64.50. Parents who avail of the scheme within a full-time or part-time child care service will be entitled to 50 weeks of free preschool provision of five weekly sessions of two hours and 15 minutes per day. This amounts to a weekly capitation grant of €48.50 and the service must reduce the weekly child care fee for parents by this amount.

The scheme will be introduced from January 2010. It is intended to benefit children in the year before they start primary school. For this reason, the age of eligibility for the scheme has been set at between three years and three months and four years and six months, as at 1 September each year. In January 2010, it will be open to children who at that point are aged between three years and seven months and four years and ten months. Parents will be advised to coincide their take-up of the scheme in line with the admissions policy of their local national schools. If cases arise where a national school does not admit children until they are more than five years and six months at 1 September each year, these cases will be examined to ensure they are not excluded for this reason alone.

Children with delayed development, who as a result will be accepted into their local national school at a later age than normal, will be able to access the free preschool year to coincide with their school starting date. Preschool services which are notified to the HSE and services which are registered with the IMEB can apply to participate in the scheme. The Department will contact these services, which total approximately 5,000, providing an information pack and details regarding the application process.

Child minders who are notified to the HSE will be included in this process. Services will normally be required to have an enrolment of at least eight children in the preschool year. Exceptions will be made in some cases, for example, a small rural service may be considered eligible where, due to low numbers of preschool children in the area, it is necessary for it to have some children in their preschool year and some who are a year younger. Child minders who are notified to the HSE and who have an enrolment of at least five children in the preschool year will be considered for entry to the scheme if they hold a child care qualification at level 5 or 6, or equivalent; operate a programme-based, preschool service which is compliant with the preschool regulations and which adheres to the principles of Síolta; and are recommended by Childminding Ireland as an appropriate setting for delivery of the preschool year.

The city and county child care committees are expected to play an important role in supporting the new scheme, particularly as a contact point between services and parents. My experience of my county child care committee is second to none, and anyone else's experience in County Longford would be the same. It is the most helpful, efficient group of people I have come across in a long time. They are there to help anybody in the child care business, whether public or private. It is great to have people like them who give all the reasons one should do something instead of all the reasons one should not do it. It is great they have encouraged so much and that we have seen such huge developments since the year 2000 in child care facilities in our county. I am sure it is the same throughout the country.

Following the issue of information packs, it is expected services will be asked to return their completed application form to their local child care committee during June and early July. The Department will finalise and approve applications in the following months and advise the committees of participating services in their area. From October 2009, parents will be able to contact their local child care committee to get details of participating services in the local area.

Participating services will be asked to make an electronic return of their enrolments to the Department in January 2010. This will be processed and will determine the grant level by reference to the number of capitation fees payable for that term. An interim payment will be made to services pending the outcome of this process if any significant delay is expected. A second payment will be made in April in respect of the following term. The process will be repeated in September as this will be the start of the first full preschool year.

I commend the Minister of State on his recommendations. We look forward to this piece of history-making, namely, the first preschool education services in Ireland.

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