Tom Hayes (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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Question 229: To ask the Minister for Health and Children if pre-school providers will be able to qualify for the new free pre-school education year programme if they open four days a week but are willing to work the 15 hours allocated to pre-school care over four days. [22534/09]

Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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As the Deputy will be aware I have responsibility for the implementation of the new scheme to provide a free Pre-School year in Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE), which will commence in January 2010.

A range of options is available to participating pre-school services to provide for the flexible delivery of the new ECCE scheme. A full or part-time day-care service will be required to provide a pre-school service for 2 hours 15 minutes per day, five days a week for 50 weeks (241 days) per year, in return for the capitation fee of €48.50 per week. A playschool sessional service will be required to provide a pre-school service for 3 hours a day, five days a week for 38 weeks (183 days) a year, in return for a capitation fee of €64.50 per week. However, where for good reason a sessional service is unable to operate over 5 days, consideration will be given to allowing it to participate in the scheme on the basis of providing the pre-school year for 3 hours 30 minutes a day for 4 days a week. In such cases, a service will be required to provide the pre-school year over 41 weeks (157 days).

Further flexibility is provided for in that, a full or part-time service may choose to provide a sessional service over 38 weeks of a year (or 2 sessional services each day) while a sessional service may choose to provide 2 hours 15 minutes per day over 50 weeks. Also in cases where children attend a full or part-time day-care service for 3 days a week only, consideration will be given to allowing the service to participate in the scheme on the basis of providing the pre-school year to those children for 3 hours 45 minutes a day for 3 days a week. In such cases, a service will be required to provide the pre-school year over 50 weeks.

Tom Hayes (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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Question 230: To ask the Minister for Health and Children if pre-school providers will be allowed to share places between families under the new free pre-school year in view of the fact that, if this is not allowed, and the number of places are full with people taking up the full amount of the pre-school year, some children may have to be turned down as there will be a lack of capacity to take all the new children applying. [22535/09]

Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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As the Deputy will be aware I have responsibility for the implementation of the new scheme to provide a free Pre-School year of Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) which was announced recently by the Minister of Finance.

During January to August 2010, to take account of the fact that some pre-school services currently accommodate a greater number of children than they have daily places for, transitional arrangements will apply. These will facilitate these services and the children attending them in that they may continue to accommodate children on a pro-rata basis and receive a capitation grant set by reference to the number of children attending each day rather than the total number of children in a week. However, from September 2010, services participating in the scheme will be required to provide full rather than pro-rata pre school year places. Parents will be encouraged to avail of the free pre-school year on the basis of full attendance and participating services will be required to give priority to parents using the service on this basis.

It is expected that the majority of the almost 5,000 existing private and voluntary pre-school services currently in operation, will participate in the scheme. Many of these will have already received capital grant aid under the Equal Opportunities Childcare Programme (EOCP) and or the National Childcare Investment Programme (NCIP). More than 65,000 additional childcare places, many of which are playschool sessional places, will have been created by the end of 2010 as a result of this investment.

I am aware from representations received from pre-school services in recent months that many are currently reporting vacancy rates of up to 25% in their facilities and I also understand that a number of people are considering setting up a pre-school service as the new scheme will allow them a degree of certainty which exists in very few areas of economic life today. In addition, many services which up to now have operated in the mornings only, citing lack of demand for an afternoon session, are now considering offering an additional session to meet an increase in local demand. As I said at the time of the announcement, some instances of under-supply may arise in the initial period of implementation of the scheme, however my Office and the city and County Childcare Committees will monitor the situation carefully, to maximise the beneficial impact of the scheme for parents and children.