Dara Murphy (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy McEntee for raising this important matter. The ECCE programme is the responsibility of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs. While a certain flexibility has been built in to the programme to facilitate the inclusion of children with a disability, the children and young people's policy framework, Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures, contained a commitment to develop a plan to facilitate the full participation of such children in the ECCE programme. The Department of Children and Youth Affairs has led responsibility for the implementation of this commitment and has concluded an intensive process of deliberation and consultation on the matter in conjunction with the Departments of Health and Education and Skills and has brought forward a new model of supports to facilitate the full participation of children with a disability in the ECCE programme. As part of budget 2016, the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs announced the necessary funding to implement the new model of ECCE supports for children with a disability. The new model will provide supports including enhanced continuing professional development for early years practitioners, grants for equipment, appliances and minor alterations, and access to therapeutic intervention. Funding of €15 million has been provided to phase these supports in during 2016. Full-year costs for these supports are estimated at €33 million from 2017 onwards. Full details of the new model are due to be announced shortly. Improving access to therapy services for children in primary care and in disability services is a particular priority for the Government. Building on additional investment in recent years, funding of €8 million is being provided to the HSE in 2016 to expand, inter alia, the provision of speech and language therapy in primary care and the further development of early intervention therapy services under the Progressing Disability Services for Children and Young People programme to facilitate the inclusion of children with a disability in mainstream preschool settings as part of the roll-out of the new inclusive preschools model.

As the Deputy will be aware, the HSE has no statutory obligation to provide assistant supports for children with special needs wishing to avail of the free preschool year. However, it has worked at local level and in partnership with the relevant disability service providers to address individual needs as they arise. In some limited cases at local level, such as in Meath, HSE disability services have facilitated children with a disability to attend mainstream preschools by providing assistant supports where possible and where resources allow. The HSE's Meath disability service has a budget of €267,200 for its ad hocpreschool supports programme. Under the arrangements currently in place, children with disabilities are assessed, in the first instance, to identify their preschool support needs, and decisions about which children qualify for supports are made in the summer before the children start preschool in September. The amount of funding or subsidy allocated to each child is dependent on the total number of approved applications in a given year.

The HSE has advised that 129 applications for preschool assistant supports were received by its Meath disability services for the 2015-2016 preschool year, 100 of which were approved. Of the 29 unapproved applications, I understand that six were turned down on the basis of having been received past the deadline for submitting applications. The HSE has indicated that unfortunately, because the budget has been exhausted, it is not in a position to increase the value of the ad hocpreschool assistant support subsidy in Meath, or to cater for the late applications.

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