James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Having read out the answer I do not believe the Government is dragging its heels. It has made this service universally available to children in the eligible age category. It makes particular allowance for those with special needs through the mechanisms I have outlined, by allowing them to split the year over two years and by not having an upper age limit for children with special needs, because sometimes their education can benefit a little bit later.

Most children with special needs participate in the ECCE programme. This is based on the fact that a total of 94% of eligible children participate in the year, so it is clearly very popular. This leaves approximately 4,800 children in the age cohort not participating and not all of these children have disabilities. This is not a homogenous group and we do not have the definitive numbers for the subgroups. Some children go straight into junior infants rather than participating in ECCE, approximately 1,700 children participate in the Early Start programme run by the Department of Education and Skills in disadvantaged schools, some children with autism spectrum disorders participate in special autism preschools, some children with very complex disabilities attend special preschools, and each year approximately 900 children are home schooled.

See this speech in context