Katherine Zappone (Dublin South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

As the Deputy knows, we launched the access and inclusion model in 2016 and are in the process of rolling it out. There are seven levels of support. During the initial months, we got huge uptake and response to the model. The objective of the programme is to ensure children with any form of disability are able to participate in our free preschool settings and to change the culture in those centres. I launched the scheme several months ago in a centre in Tallaght where it was evident that the culture was already present. This has much to do with the values behind the private as well as community-based providers in the work they do. This is the first level of support and it goes all the way up to the higher levels of support where there are resources that can be applied for to provide direct and more intensive support to the child while he or she is in the provider's care.

There were some initial teething problems are there are with the roll-out of any programme. Very significant resources have been provided for the support of parents, providers and practitioners, particularly in learning, training and providing on-site mentoring. The Deputy is aware of all those levels of support and there are what we hope are sufficient funds - it was a significant amount of money - for its full roll-out in 2017.

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