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

The early childhood care and education, ECCE, programme covers children who have reached the age of three years and two months by 1 September of the relevant year. From September 2016, I am expanding the programme to allow children to enrol in free preschool from the time they are three years of age and remain there until they start primary school. This extended free preschool provision was first recommended by the expert advisory group on the early years strategy in 2013. It was also one of a series of recommendations of the recent interdepartmental group on future investment in child care, which I established last January. The group consulted a wide range of stakeholders, including in the early years sector, during the course of its work. The result of that work was a very good example of what a coherent document based on wide consultation could achieve. We now have a clear pathway for future investment in child care.

Under the extended programme, there will be three opportunities for eligible children to enrol during the preschool year: children who reach the age of three years between April and August will have the opportunity to enrol in September; children who reach the age of three between September and December will have the opportunity to enrol in January and children who reach the age of three between January and March will have the opportunity to enrol in April. As a result of this extension, the number of children benefiting from the programme is expected to rise from around 67,000 to 127,000 in a given programme year. For the 2016-17 programme year, it is estimated that 89,500 children will be eligible to enrol in the programme from September 2016, 22,000 from January 2017 and 15,500 from April 2017.

In order to provide the early years sector with the time it needs to build capacity to meet this increased demand, a decision was taken to introduce the new measure from September 2016. As the increased demand for the programme is not expected to peak until January and April 2017, this timeframe should allow preschool providers to make infrastructural or service changes that are necessary and put in place extra staff resources to accommodate the additional demand.

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