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

I utterly reject the contention that we are not giving this the focus it deserves. This is the first Government to have a senior Cabinet Minister responsible for and focused on the needs of children. That is something which successive Governments did not do beforehand. As I pointed out already, we know some children go straight into junior infants rather than participating in the early childhood care and education, ECCE, programme. There are approximately 1,700 children who participate in the Department of Education and Skill's Early Start in disadvantaged schools, and some children with autism spectrum disorders participate in special autism preschool classes. Some children with very complex disabilities attend special preschools and each year approximately 900 children are home schooled, and it is likely those children do not participate in preschool either. The number varies each year. Some children in full day care are recorded as being in the children's community subvention programme, so they do not appear in the ECCE figures. Work is ongoing to get the detailed information on these groups, mainly from the Department of Education and Skills.

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