Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Question 551: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the annual cost of introducing a universal pre-school session of three and a half hours per day, five days a week for all children in the year before they go to school, as recommended by the National Economic and Social Forum in its Report on Early Childhood Care and Education published in 2005. [31157/07]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The 2005 NESF recommends the establishment of a National Early Age Development Programme to support the needs of all children. Their programme is based on three main strategies

a State-provided ECCE session for all children for a period of one year before they go into primary school

the support and reform of the existing ECCE infrastructure so that children have access to quality services that are currently provided in a diverse range of settings

targeted provision for children with specific needs.

The report estimated the annual cost of introducing universal pre-school provision at €136 million but does not go into detail on how the figure of €136million was derived. This estimate does not include the cost of supporting the existing ECCE infrastructure to develop and deliver services.

The cost of providing free pre-school places for all children before they enrol in Primary schools is dependent on a number of factors including the type of model proposed. Pre-school services operate across a wide range of curricular philosophical bases, e.g., Montessori, Steiner, High/Scope. Other approaches include the Region Emilio approach. Any estimated costing would depend on the models of intervention envisaged and assumptions about different variables within those models. As these have not been specified, it is not possible to provide a costing as requested.