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

I thank the Senator for the opportunity to address this matter. The early childhood care and education programme was introduced in 2010. Aligned with the school year, the programme provides one year, that is, the 38 weeks of the academic year, of free preschool to every child before he or she starts primary school. At present, children aged between three years and two months and four years and seven months in the September of the enrolment year qualify for the programme. This means, for example, that children born between 2 February 2011 and 30 June 2012 qualify for the preschool provision in the current school year. Children born after 30 June qualify in the school year commencing in September 2016. In budget 2016, I announced additional funding of €85 million for the child care sector to support the achievement of affordable, accessible and high-quality child care. This funding represents an increase of 33% in the annual investment in child care supports in my Department and allows us to deliver significant enhancements to a number of child care support programmes.

Given what is known about the importance of quality investment in the early years, I am pleased the Government has been able to implement one recommendation of the expert advisory group on the early years strategy, which also was made by the interdepartmental group on future investment in child care I established earlier this year, namely, to provide free preschool care for every child in the country from when he or she turns three until he or she starts primary school. To ensure that children can benefit from this entitlement at the earliest opportunity, they will be able to join the programme at three different points in the year, as opposed to the current position in which one can only join in September. In addition to the regular intake point of September, children in future also will be able to join free preschool in January and April. This new entitlement comes into effect from September 2016. This start-up date was deliberately chosen. This new entitlement to free preschool for all children means the number of children who benefit from free preschool is estimated to increase from approximately 67,000 at present to approximately 127,000 children when fully rolled out. A significant expansion of the capacity of the preschool sector is therefore required. The September 2016 date was chosen to give providers enough time to make any changes they consider to be necessary to their preschool service and to put in place extra staff resources to accommodate the additional numbers that will benefit from the programme.

The three registration points we are providing for in the programme means the total number of weeks children will spend in free preschool will depend on two factors, namely, their birth date and the age at which they start primary school. Children qualifying for the preschool provision in September 2016 will have a birth date between 1 January 2012 and 31 December 2013.Some of these children, those with birth dates between 1 January 2012 and 30 June 2012, will have already qualified for the provision under the age criteria for this year, which I outlined earlier, and are currently availing of the programme. This means that those children will be entitled to enrol again in September 2016 for a further 38 weeks free preschool provision, bringing the possible maximum number of weeks they can avail of to 76 weeks.

Children born between 1 July 2012 and 31 December 2012 do not qualify for the free preschool provision in the current school year as the cut-off date is 30 June 2012. However, they will qualify in September 2016 under the new age criteria for the enhanced programme but will only be entitled to 38 weeks of one free preschool year. Under the extended programme, children cannot enrol for free preschool if their age will exceed five years and six months at the end of a given preschool year.

I understand this expansion of the programme, and the change in entitlements, is one that it may take people a little time to get used to but I am confident that this budgetary measure represents a significant improvement in our support for children and families, something to which the Government has made a strong commitment.