Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The free preschool year in early childhood care and education, ECCE, programme, which was introduced in January 2010, provides a free preschool year to all eligible children before they commence primary school. It is a universal programme with an attendance level of 94% of qualifying children, which equates to approximately 67,000 children.

The free preschool provision was introduced following a Government decision in 2009 to redirect some of the savings arising from the abolition of the early child care supplement. In line with the programme for Government, I succeeded in maintaining the universality of the free preschool year, including securing additional funding of €9.8 million in 2012 to address increased demand due to an increase in births since 2009.

With respect to future developments, I have on numerous occasions indicated my objective to seek to introduce a second free preschool year, which would represent an equivalent saving of approximately €3,000 in child care costs for parents as well as contribute to improved educational and developmental outcomes for children. However, I am conscious of the continuing imperative to deliver improvements in quality in the preschool year that we have.

Recently, the preschool inspectorate for the sector, together with the inspectorate of the Department of Education and Skills, carried out joint pilot inspections of a number of preschool services. While the findings have not yet been published, I understand the pilot inspections found good standards of personal care, relationships and physical and material environments for children's development. They also identified considerable scope for development in regard to planned programmes of activities and their implementation, as outlined in the Aistear and Siolta frameworks, which promote all aspects of children's development. I would therefore like to see development and further investment in a number of associated measures to support quality assurance, staff training, workforce development and inspections. My Department is currently examining proposals in these areas in collaboration with the Department of Education and Skills.

Additional information not given on the floor of the House

My Department has initially estimated that the additional cost of providing a second free preschool year would be broadly in line with the costs of the current one-year provision. It is anticipated that the second-year participation rate would not be as high as the current rate. It is estimated that the full cost of introducing a second universal free preschool year, including all associated measures referred to, could be between €175 million and €200 million.

As a building block towards a possible second free preschool year, my Department is continuing to work and invest in improving quality standards and workforce capacity. Future developments relating to early years care and education will be considered during the preparation of the new national early years strategy, which is currently being developed by my Department and will be published later this year.

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