Liz McManus (Wicklow, Labour)
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Question 60: To ask the Minister for Education and Science her response to the finding in the Forfás annual competitiveness report that Ireland ranks bottom of the table of 15 countries in participation of four year olds in education; her plans to expand the early start programme or to introduce other measures to provide for early childhood education; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [27663/05]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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Early education in Ireland covers the period from birth to six years. At present almost all five year olds and half of four year olds attend junior infant and senior infant classes in primary schools. Outside of junior classes in primary schools, my Department's main role in the area of early childhood education focuses on pre-school provision for children from disadvantaged areas, Traveller children and those with special needs. 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 currently providing some 26,000 child care places.

The early start programme, referred to by the Deputy, is a pre-school intervention programme targeted at three to four year old children in areas of social disadvantage. With this programme, young children can experience an educational programme to enhance their overall development, help prevent school failure and help offset the effects of social disadvantage. 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.

Targeted early childhood education provision will be a key element of the new action plan for educational inclusion DEIS, delivering equality of opportunity in schools, which I launched in May of this year. The plan's objective is to concentrate early education actions on those children aged from three up to school enrolment, who will subsequently attend urban-town primary schools serving the most disadvantaged communities. On a phased basis, the 150 urban-town primary school communities serving communities with the highest concentrations of disadvantage will be provided with access to early education for children aged from three up to school enrolment, who will subsequently attend these primary schools. The action plan will be implemented on a phased basis over the next five years and will involve the creation of about 300 additional posts across the education system.

My Department's approach will be to work in partnership with other Departments and agencies to complement and add value to existing child care programmes in disadvantaged communities, with a view to ensuring that the overall care and education needs of the children concerned are met in an integrated manner.

Co-ordination between education and care is essential in the further development of early childhood services in the country.

The issue of co-ordination of services is being tackled through the high level working group being chaired by the National Children's Office. This group has been asked to provide the Government with a range of policy options which: make the link between education and care and the benefits to be gained by individual children as well as by communities and society in general; increase the supply of appropriate early childhood education and care settings by developing capacity in the system; include measures which make services more affordable; and ensure quality is a design feature in the child care system.