Shane McEntee (Meath, Fine Gael)
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Question 67: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the number of early education places currently available in the State; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [19753/05]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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Early education in Ireland covers the period from birth to six years. Almost all five year olds and half of four year olds attend junior infant and senior infant classes in primary schools. Provision for children below the age of four is targeted at specific groups.

Outside of junior classes in primary schools, my Department's main role in the area of early childhood education encompasses pre-school provision for children from disadvantaged areas, Traveller children and those with special needs.

The Early Start pre-school project was established in 40 primary schools in designated areas of urban disadvantage in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, Waterford, Galway, Drogheda and Dundalk during 1994 and 1995. There are a total of 1,680 places in Early Start centres.

The new action plan for educational inclusion, DEIS — Delivering Equality Of Opportunity In Schools — which I launched on 30 May, provides for a standardised system for identifying levels of disadvantage and a new integrated school support programme, SSP, which will bring together and build upon a number of existing interventions for schools with a concentrated level of disadvantage.

The action plan aims to concentrate early childhood education actions on those children, aged from three up to school enrolment, who will subsequently attend the 150 urban-town primary schools, participating in the new school support programme, and identified as serving the most disadvantaged communities. The early childhood education actions under the new plan will be well targeted and my Department will work in partnership with other Departments and agencies with a view to meeting the overall care and education needs of the children involved in an integrated way. A strong emphasis will be placed on adding value to the work of other providers by embedding quality early learning within child care provision.

The future direction of the Early Start programme will be considered in rolling out the new action plan.

A survey to assess levels of disadvantage in primary schools is currently being carried out with the assistance of the Educational Research Centre and this will assist my Department in identifying the primary school communities to be targeted for early education support under the action plan. The plan will be implemented on a phased basis, starting in the next school year.

My Department currently funds 48 pre-school classes for Traveller children. In the special needs sector, there are currently 14 pre-school classes for children with autism located throughout the country. In addition to this, ten stand-alone autism facilities that provide an applied behavioural analysis, ABA, model of response to children with autism cater for a number of children of pre-school age. My Department has also sanctioned the establishment of a pre-school for six children with hearing impairment on a pilot basis.

The bulk of pre-school places in the country are financed by the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, which has provided unprecedented levels of funding for child care in recent years. The Department of Health and Children also provides grants to child care groups, including to community groups in areas of social and economic disadvantage.