Jack Wall (Kildare South, Labour)
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Question 297: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the number of children in Kildare that are currently receiving a pre school Education which is funded by her Department; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [6912/07]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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As the Deputy may be aware, the vast majority of support for childcare, including pre-school education, is not provided by my Department, but under the Equal Opportunities Childcare Programme (EOCP), was provided by the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform.

This Government has provided unprecedented levels of funding for childcare in recent years. €499.3 million was allocated to the EOCP 2000-2006 and some 41,000 places will have been created by the time the programme finishes.

Going forward, childcare provision will continue to attract substantial investment under the new National Childcare Investment Programme 2006-2010.

€575m has been allocated to the new programme, which will be administered by the Office of the Minister for Children and aims to provide a proactive response to the development of quality childcare services by supporting the creation of an additional 50,000 places. 20% of these places will be for pre-school children.

My Department's involvement in pre-school education in Co. Kildare is limited to one pre-school for Traveller children which currently has an enrolment of ten children. My Department also provides funding to one stand-alone autism facility providing an Applied Behavioural Analysis (ABA) specific methodology on a pilot basis for thirty children in Co. Kildare; some of these children are of pre-school age. Under the home tuition scheme, my Department also provides funding to twenty pre-school children diagnosed with autism.

The Deputy may wish to contact the Office of the Minister for Children for details of the number of children in pre-school provision in Kildare, supported by the EOCP.