Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister of State for being present. I also thank the Ceann Comhairle for the opportunity to raise this important matter. I was prompted to bring forward the issue by a constituent who is a low-paid worker with four children, including twins under four. My constituent was looking forward to availing of the free preschool year for her twin children beginning in September 2010. She is now bitterly disappointed to find that, because those two children will not reach the age of three until July, they will not qualify for the preschool year in September. She has been told that they would only be able to begin their preschool year in September 2011. By that time, they will be of an age to attend primary school. I have no doubt that this is not an isolated case. The same flaw in the regulations must affect thousands of children.

There is, and will be, widespread frustration with the manner in which the free preschool year in early childhood care and education has been established and implemented. The rules, as currently laid down, discriminate against children who should qualify for this scheme and this is causing deep disappointment to their parents who expected to be able to avail of the scheme. They have been refused places for this coming September because the rules of the scheme state that to qualify for places in September 2010, children must be born on or after 2 February 2006 or on or before 30 June 2007. One can imagine the disappointment of their parents, both low-paid workers struggling to raise their children. Their mother's plea to "please give me some incentive to go to work" speaks volumes.

Clearly, children should automatically qualify for the free preschool year once they become three years of age and arrangements should be made to allow them to enrol. Rolling enrolment is required. In 2010 it was provided for that children could commence in January. I urge that the same provision be made for 2011 and subsequent years. It may be that some children will not be able to avail of a full year, but they should be able to avail of part of a year.

This scheme cannot be compared to enrolment for the first year in primary school, which is the first of eight years of primary education. The scheme in question is supposed to be a free preschool year, and children and parents must be allowed to avail of it when children are of preschool age. In the case I have cited and many others like it, the children will not qualify for September 2010 and will only qualify for September 2011, by which time they will be starting primary school anyway.

I tabled questions to Minister of State, Deputy Barry Andrews, who is present in the House, on this matter. I refer to Questions Nos. 271 and 272 of 20 October 2009. However, I found the replies totally unsatisfactory and, in fact, contradictory. How can it be claimed that the scheme is being operated "generously", as the Minister stated, when it excludes so many children who happen to be born in what I can only describe as gap months between the registration date and the commencement date? Surely flexibility could be introduced into the system to allow children to start when they reach the age of three. Even if they were not able to avail of the full year, they could avail of part of it, and this would still be of educational value to the children and of great assistance to their parents. Again I ask, would it not be possible for children to begin in January 2011, just as they began in January 2010?

Cyprian Brady (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)
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The Deputy has one minute.

Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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I will not need it all as I am about to conclude by using the opportunity of the Adjournment debate this evening to urge the Minister of State, Deputy Andrews, to change these inflexible and unfair rules and ensure that all children are treated equally - not just the twins to whom I referred, but all children who were born in those specific gap months in 2007. The problem will recur annually unless it is satisfactorily addressed.

Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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I have responsibility for the implementation of the free preschool year in early childhood care and education, ECCE, scheme which commenced in January of this year.

The introduction of the ECCE scheme was announced in April 2009 as part of the supplementary budget. A total of €170 million has been allocated to the scheme in 2010. The scheme is open to application by all preschool services notified to the HSE or registered with the Irish Montessori Education Board, IMEB. Approximately 4,000 preschool services, or some 85%, which met the criteria for the scheme are participating. There is at present no statutory basis for the ECCE scheme. The terms and conditions governing the scheme have been drawn up by my office on an administrative basis and are provided for in the contractual arrangements which govern the scheme.

Preschool services are paid a capitation fee, generally at the rate of €2,450 per annum, in return for providing the free preschool year to qualifying children. Services are required to provide appropriate programme-based activities for children in the qualifying age range. The early learning programmes provided must adhere to the principles of Síolta, the national framework for early learning developed under the Department of Education and Science. In addition, preschool leaders delivering the programmes and activities must hold minimum qualifications in early learning. A higher capitation rate of €2,850 is available to preschool services with more highly qualified staff.

All preschool services participating in the ECCE scheme were required to make a return to my office by 29 January 2010 giving details of the qualifying children enrolled and attending their services. While this will determine the level of funding payable to the services, advance interim payments were issued in January 2010 to all services in contract and where bank details had been provided. The returns are currently being processed by the child care directorate of my office, which administers the scheme.

I was delighted to announce yesterday that more than 51,000 children are participating in the scheme. This represents a very high take-up, particularly in the initial interim period in advance of the first full year of the scheme from September next. It should also be noted that some 2,500 children who would qualify for the ECCE scheme are availing of their free community child care subvention scheme, CCSS, which is also implemented by my office. The CCSS provides support funding to community child care services to enable them to charge reduced child care fees to disadvantaged and low-income parents. Parents qualifying for the highest rate of subvention will in many cases receive a higher funding level under the CCSS and for this reason have opted to avail of the preschool year under the CCSS. This means that the percentage of children availing of the free preschool year at this point is 85%.

The ECCE scheme is a universal scheme and is open to all children when they fall within the qualifying age range. To provide flexibility for parents and their children, the qualifying age range is three years and three months to four years and six months, measured in September each year. This means that all children aged more than three years and two months and all children aged less than four years and seven months will qualify. This allows for an age range of almost 17 months. Children who were aged three years and two months or slightly younger in September 2009 will qualify for the preschool year in September 2010. The upper age limit does not apply where children are developmentally delayed and would benefit from participating in the preschool year at a later age or where a particular issue arises with regard to school admissions policies.

While the great majority of children commence school between the age of four years six months and five years six months, it is accepted that some parents choose to send their children to primary school at an earlier age. The ECCE scheme allows for children to attend the preschool year and still commence primary school when they are just over four years and two months of age. However, the objective of the scheme is to make early learning in a formal setting available to all children in the key developmental year before they commence primary school, with appropriate age-related activities and programmes being provided to children within a particular age cohort. Targeting the preschool year at a particular age cohort is clearly fundamental to the scheme and it is necessary, therefore, to set minimum and maximum limits to the age range within which children will participate in the scheme each year. I am satisfied that the age range set for the scheme achieves a reasonable balance between supporting the provision of appropriate age-related programmes and activities and providing flexibility to parents and their children, and I have no plans to review the position.