John Moloney (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I apologise that the Minister of State, Deputy Barry Andrews, could not be here to take this matter. The introduction of the free preschool year in early childhood care and education scheme is one of the most significant developments in early childhood care and education to have taken place in Ireland to date. Building on the progress made over the past decade, in terms of investing in child care and in developing educational frameworks for young children, we are now taking the first major step in providing universal preschool education for all children. More than 4,200 preschool services are now participating in the scheme and providing the free preschool year to some 63,000 children. This represents 94% of children in the year before starting school and is, I believe, a staggering achievement within nine months of the introduction of the scheme.

In addition, almost all preschool services in the country are participating in the scheme. These figures are testimony to the quality of our preschool services in responding to both the opportunities and challenges of the new scheme and to the commitment of parents to the importance of early learning for their children at a key developmental stage of their lives. While there is a potential for anomalies in any new scheme which is introduced, the Minister believes that the free preschool year scheme is working extraordinarily well for the vast majority of preschool service providers and for parents and their preschool children and I would not accept that there are any significant anomalies with its implementation. The Minister believes this is borne out by the very high participation levels achieved by the start of its first full year. Children are eligible for the free preschool year where they are aged between three years and three months and four years and six months in September of the relevant year. This means that children born between 2 February 2006 and 30 June 2007 qualified for the free preschool year in September 2010. The upper age limit does not apply where children are developmentally delayed and would benefit from participating in the pre-school year at a later age, or where local primary school enrolment policy requires them to start junior infants aged five years and seven months or older.

The scheme does not provide for any exceptions to the lower age of just over three years and two months at which children become eligible to avail of the free preschool year. The objective of the ECCE scheme is to make early learning in a formal setting available to eligible children in the key developmental year before they commence primary school. To achieve this, services participating in the preschool year are expected to provide age-appropriate activities and programmes to children within a particular age cohort. Targeting the preschool year at a particular age cohort is clearly fundamental to the scheme and it is necessary, therefore, to set minimum and maximum limits to the age range within which children participate in the scheme each year. In setting the minimum and maximum age limits, account was taken of a number of factors, including the fact that the majority of children commence primary school between the ages of four years and six months and five years and six months. Notwithstanding that, the ECCE scheme provides for an eligibility range of almost 17 months. As in the case of any scheme introduced, cases will arise where individuals would prefer if certain conditions did not apply. However, the scheme must remain sufficiently targeted to ensure the best delivery of pre-school education and it is considered, therefore, that the age range provided for is appropriate.

Research underpins the importance of delivering preschool provision in a consistent format based within an appropriate educational framework. For this reason, the preschool year scheme has been designed to provide some 570 hours for each participating child, which will be delivered on a weekly basis over the course of each year. Added flexibility is provided under the scheme for children with special needs who would benefit from availing of the pre-school year on a pro-rata basis over two years. This is very helpful to parents whose children may also be attending a special needs service but wish their children to avail of mainstream provision to the greatest extent possible. The Office of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs is also working closely with the Office of Disability and Mental Health with a view to optimising the current arrangements for the delivery of special needs supports for preschool children. The Minister of State, Deputy Andrews, hopes that this process will lead to improved arrangements at local level and greater access for children with special needs to mainstream services. Rather than wait until September 2010, the free preschool year was introduced in January of this year resulting in a shorter period of provision at that point.

As I have said, the first full year of the scheme came into effect this September. I would accept that this could be seen as an anomaly; however, the alternative would have been to delay the scheme and its benefits from the parents and children who would have missed out by a later introduction date. The shorter year provision in January 2010 was clearly signalled and was highlighted on the parent declaration forms that all parents were required to sign when enrolling their children into the scheme. An annual capitation fee of over €2,400 is paid to participating services. This is equivalent to €64.50 per week where a service is participating for 38 weeks and €48.50 per week where it participates for 50 weeks.

A higher capitation fee of €2,850 per annum is available to sessional play-school services in which all child care workers have specified qualification levels which are above the minimum requirements for the scheme. For most services, the scheme has seen an increase in their income and allows them to meet the higher standards required for participation relative to the existing requirements under the child care regulations. These higher standards concerning qualification of staff and the educational programme guided by Siolta will ensure that a quality service is provided to all children in their preschool year and not just those whose parents can afford to pay higher fees.

The Minister believes the decision to introduce the scheme at this time was far-sighted. The free preschool year gives equal opportunities to all children, particularly the most marginalised who would not otherwise be able to attend pre-school, as well as helping parents who, up to now, had to meet the cost of preschool provision themselves.

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