Paschal Donohoe (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister of State. The ECCE scheme is an excellent one under which young children have free access for one year to pre-school activity and programmes before they enter primary school. It will have a positive effect on young children in getting them ready for primary school.

A constituent of mine has a son who will be four years old at the beginning of July. He is deemed old enough to start primary school in September, but owing to the date on which his birthday falls, he falls outside the qualifying period to receive funding under the scheme. When my constituent went to avail of the funding available, it turned out that his son was not the right age to avail of the pre-school programme, but he is deemed old enough to start primary school. It is an issue that was brought to my attention. I raise it to see whether it is an oversight in the scheme that can be remedied or whether it is a feature of the fact that any scheme has to have a start date and an end date and that there will always be people on either side of it. If it is the former, and I hope that it is, I ask that we do something about it. If it is the latter, and it is a case of somebody falling outside the horizon of the scheme, I ask that we examine it. I am sure there are many children in such circumstances who are old enough to go to primary school at the end of the summer.